He swung round. "What on earth do you mean?" he demanded. "Are you keeping a loophole open to throw me over for somebody else?"
"No, no!" she said. "I have never thought of anybody else. I couldn't imagine myself going with anybody but you. Only I don't want to be tied yet. I want to feel free a bit longer."
"Is that all?" he said, then began to grow angry owing to a reaction from his fright. "A nice fool you would make me look if you turned me down now. I suppose you don't realize that my friends in the train just wink at each other when they ask me to go anywhere of an evening, knowing I shan't go. Then one chap—funny chap he is—always says, 'How's the C.R. doing?' You mayn't know where the joke comes in, but C.R. stands for a railway as well as Carrie Raby. And after all that, I'm to be played fast and loose with. It's carrying things a bit too far. I don't say I agree with the times when men clubbed girls over the head and brought them home like that, but I will say the pendulum has swung too far. A girl can't have a boy of her own and be as free as if she hadn't. I don't know what you think you want, Carrie."
"I've no wish to be horrid, I'm sure," said Caroline. "I do think it is most awfully kind and generous of you to want to give me a ring. But I feel as if I would rather not have one."
"Well, have it your own way, of course. Only I can't make all this out," said Wilf. "If you didn't fancy me for a husband you might have found out before. You've had plenty of time."
"But I never did think of you as a husband, somehow," said Caroline. "We began to walk out together like boys and girls do, and it has gone on. I don't say I shall never feel different. I can't picture myself ever wanting to go with anybody but you. Only there it is." She paused, looking out to sea, and the wash of the waves brought back to some degree those feelings which she had experienced when he talked about the five thousand pounds. "I'm sorry if I've hurt your feelings, Wilf. I'm sure I didn't want to. I only wanted to be straight with you."
"Well, we'll let it pass," said Wilf. "Girls have all sorts of funny feelings we don't have, I expect; and a lot would have taken the ring first and talked afterwards. I like a girl to be straight."
But he did not. He was at the stage when what he most wanted from the female sex was a sugared insincerity which looked like crude candour and independence. And as they walked on again, though they were linked together, she certainly appeared less desirable to him than she had done when she was circling round the hall in Wilson's arms with her bright draperies glowing between the gaslight and the sunset.
When they had said farewell at the gate of the Cottage garden and he stood waiting until he heard Caroline safely open the front door, these discontents grew more active still. Here he was, seeing her home, and making no objection, though some one had actually said in his hearing that she was Miss Wilson's maid-servant. He had not told her this from feelings of delicacy, but he began to think that delicacy was rather wasted on her, and determined to do so at the next opportunity.
Caroline opened the door softly and was creeping up the old stairs which creaked at every step, when Miss Ethel peered out of her bedroom and caught a glimpse of flame colour beneath the open coat.