She said:
"Yes! I know! With your great friends."
He answered:
"Oh, only with Mr. Waterhouse and General Campion . . . and Mr. Sandbach, of course . . ."
She had a moment of fierce pleasure at the thought that Tietjens was not to be of the company: her man would be out-soaring the vulgarian of his youth, of his past that she didn't know. . . . Almost harshly she exclaimed:
"I don't want you to be mistaken about Kingussie House. It was just a holiday school. Not a grand place."
"It was very costly," he said, and she seemed to waver on her feet.
"Yes! yes!" she said, nearly in a whisper "But you're so grand now! I was only the child of very poor bodies. Johnstons of Midlothian. But very poor bodies. . . . I . . . He bought me, you might say. You know. . . . Put me to very rich schools: when I was fourteen . . . my people were glad. . . . But I think if my mother had known when I married . . ." She writhed her whole body. "Oh, dreadful! dreadful!" she exclaimed. "I want you to know . . ."
His hands were shaking as if he had been in a jolting cart. . . .
Their lips met in a passion of pity and tears. He removed his mouth to say: "I must see you this evening. . . . I shall be mad with anxiety about you." She whispered: "Yes! yes! . . . In the yew walk." Her eyes were closed, she pressed her body fiercely into his. "You are the . . . first . . . man . . ." she breathed.