"May I come and sit on the hillside with you?" he asked. "Or is the—the box-seat already engaged?"
"Hugh suggested it," she said. "I was going out with him."
Seymour picked up his work again.
"It seems to me I am behaving rather nicely," he said. "At the same time I'm not sure that I am not behaving rather anemically. I haven't seen you much since I came down here. And after all I didn't come down here to see Esther."
Nadine frowned, and laid her hand on his arm. But she did not do it quite instinctively. It was clear she thought it would be appropriate. Certainly that was quite clear to Seymour.
"Take that hand away," he said. "You only put it there because it was suitable. You didn't want to touch me."
Nadine removed her hand, as if his coat-sleeve was red-hot.
"You are rather a brute," she said.
"No, I am not, unless it is brutal to tell you what you know already. I repeat that I am behaving rather nicely."
It was owing to him to do him justice.