He shook his head.
"Take it," said Marjorie with quiet insistence.
He obeyed. She stood with her eyes on the crumpled heap of bills. They were not even tidily arranged. That seemed to her now an extreme aggravation of her offence.
"I ought to be sent to the chemist's," she remarked, "as one sends a worthless cat."
Trafford weighed this proposition soberly for some moments. "You're a bother, Marjorie," he said with his eyes on the desk; "no end of a bother. I'd better have those bills."
He looked at her, stood up, put his hands on her shoulders, drew her to him and kissed her forehead. He did it without passion, without tenderness, with something like resignation in his manner. She clung to him tightly, as though by clinging she could warm and soften him.
"Rag," she whispered; "all my heart is yours.... I want to help you.... And this is what I have done."
"I know," he said—almost grimly.
He repeated his kiss.
Then he seemed to explode again. "Gods!" he cried, "look at the clock. I shall miss that Croydon lecture!" He pushed her from him. "Where are my boots?..."