His remark reduced her to momentary thoughtfulness. The staple dish of the extemporised meal was a pheasant. Perigal, despite her protests, was heaping up her plate a second time, when he said:
"Do you know what I was dreading the whole way up?"
"That you'd got into the right train!"
"Scarcely that. I was funky you'd do the obvious sentimental thing, and wear the old Polperro dress."
"As if I would!"
"Anyway, you haven't. Besides, it's much too cold."
He ordered champagne. Further to play the part of Circe to his Ulysses, she drank a little of this, careless of the pain it might inflict. Although she was worn down by her anxieties and the pain of her abscess, it gave her an immense thrill of pleasure to notice how soon she recovered her old ascendancy over him. Now, his admiring eyes never left her face. Once, when he got up to hand her something, he went out of his way to come behind her to kiss her neck.
"Little Mavis is a fascinating little devil," he remarked, as he resumed his seat.
"That's what you thought when I met you at the station."
"I was tired and worried, and worry destroys love quicker than anything. Now—"