She raised her eyes. The moment had come.
He threw one arm round her, and raised her face with the other hand. She gave her lips easily, with a naturalness that surprised and deceived him. He might marry her, or she might be his mistress, he didn't know which, but he was quite sure that he liked her better than any woman he had seen for a long time. He had not known her a week, and she already absorbed his thoughts. And, during the drive home, he hardly saw the forest. Once a birch, whose faint leaves and branches dissolved in a glittering light, drew his thoughts away from Mildred. She lay upon his shoulder, his arm was affectionately around her, and, looking at him out of eyes whose brown seemed to soften in affection, she said:
'Elsie said you'd get round me.'
'What did she mean?'
'Well,' said Mildred, nestling a little closer, and laughing low, 'haven't you got round me?'
Her playfulness enchanted her lover, and, when she discreetly sought his hand, he felt that he understood her account of Alfred's brutality. But her tenderness, in speaking of Ralph, quickened his jealousy.
'My violets lay under his hand, he must have died thinking of me.'
'But the woman who wrote to you, his mistress, she must have known all about his love for you. What did she say?'
'She said very little. She was very nice to me. She could see that I was a good woman….'
'But that made no difference so far as she was concerned. You took her lover away from her.'