“I think we have had enough of Mrs. Roope. You haven’t half admired my frock. I have a great mind not to wear my new teagown tonight. I should resent it being ignored. We ought to go out again until dinner, the afternoon is lovely. I can’t sit on the beach in this, but I need only slip on an old skirt. Shall I put on another skirt? Do you feel in the humour for the beach? I’ve a thousand questions to ask you. I seem to have been down here by myself for an age. I have actually started a book! What do you say to that? I want to tell you about it. What has been decided about the door-plates? What did the parents say when they heard I’d fled?”
“I didn’t see them until the next day.”
“Had they recovered?”
“They were resigned. I promised to bring you back with me on Monday.”
“And now you don’t want to?”
“How can you say that?”
“Did I say it? My mood is frivolous, you mustn’t take me too seriously. The beach ... you haven’t answered about the beach. Perhaps you’d rather walk. I don’t mind adventuring this skirt if we walk.”
“You are not too tired?”
“How conventional!”
Something had come between them, some summer cloud or thunderstorm. Try as they would during the remainder of the day they could not break through or see each other as clearly as before. Margaret talked frivolously, or seriously, rallied, jested with him. He struggled to keep up with her, to take his tone from hers, to be natural. But both of them were acutely aware of failure, of artificiality. The walk, the dinner, the short evening failed to better the situation. When they bade each other good-night he made one more effort.