When he had been up to his room and come down to the little drawing-room he found Alicia Penrose. "She's been asked to make things easier," he said to himself. He was glad. He was not afraid of her as he was of some people and he fancied that she rather liked him. In her presence he always felt himself an untidy, uncouth schoolboy, but to-night he was not thinking of himself. He knew that beneath her nonsense she was a good sort. She was standing, legs apart, in front of the fire; she was wearing a costume of broad checks, like a chessboard. It reached just below the knees, but she had fine legs, slim, strong, sensible. Her hair, brushed straight back from her forehead, was jet black; she had beautiful, small, strong hands.
"Well, Trenchard," she said, "had enough of London?"
He stammered, laughed and said nothing.
"Why do you always behave like a complete idiot when you're with me?" she asked. "You're not an idiot—know you're not from what Duncombe has told me—always behave like one with me."
"Perhaps you terrify me!" said Henry.
"Damn being terrified! Why be terrified of anybody? All the same, all of us. Legs, arms—— All dead soon."
"Shyness is a very difficult thing," said Henry. "I've suffered from it all my life—partly because I'm conceited and partly because I'm not conceited enough."
"Have you indeed?" said Lady Alicia, looking at him with interest. "Now that's the first interestin' thing you've ever said to me. Expect you could say a lot of things like that if you tried."
"Oh, I'm clever!" said Henry. "The trouble is that my looks are against me. That's funny, too, because I have a most beautiful sister and another sister is quite nice-looking. I suppose they took all the looks of the family and there were none left for me."
Lady Alicia considered him.