"So did I! The air up there is so splendid. And it's all so gorgeously empty."
"I've been up before. But I enjoyed it much more this time."
Naturally she did not take it as he meant it.
"One doesn't often get such a perfect day, I suppose," was her answer.
Martin was at a loss. He wanted to say all sorts of things: fortunately they stuck.
She turned to go: "I'm sure you'll have a good time at Oxford and make the most of it!"
"Thank you very much. Everyone does seem to enjoy it."
"Good-night!" she said, and left him to go to her room. The door closed behind with a sharpness that hurt.
As Martin lingered in the passage it began to occur to him that he was a silly fool, that boys of eighteen shouldn't fall in love with married women of twenty-five or even more, and that, even if they did, there was no point in being tongue-tied and nervous. But what was the good of self-reproach? He wasn't to blame if she was perfect. And she was perfect. To-morrow he would have to go up to Oxford. He would scarcely see her again. There was nothing left of her now, nothing except the boots which stood outside her door, their strong brown leather stained with the peat of Bear Down and Devil's Tor. At last he moved quickly to his room and undressed.
As he lay half naked on his bed he recalled the glories of the moor and the way they had talked. God, how she had talked! They had defied that leaping wind from whose onslaught his cheeks still burned. It had been a day of days. Then he heard Godfrey Cartmell come up and again the door closed. The sound of it hurt him. How could she waste herself on that correct, that unutterably correct, young Liberal?