When Miles returned Meg had lit her cigarette, and he begged a light from her.
What little hands she had! How fine-grained and delicate her skin!
Again he felt that queer lump in his throat at the absurd, sweet pathos of her.
He placed his chair where he had her full in view, not too near, yet comfortably so for conversation. Jan had swung the hammock very high, and Meg looked down at Miles over the edge.
"It is unusual," she said, "to find a competent nurse spending her morning in this fashion, but if you know Miss Ross at all, you will already have realised that under her placid exterior she has a will of iron."
"I shouldn't say you were lacking in determination."
"Oh, I'm nothing to Jan. She exerts physical force. Look at me perched up here! How can I get down without a bad fall, swathed like a mummy in wraps; while my employer does my work?"
"But you don't want to get down. You look awfully comfortable."
"I am awfully comfortable—but it's most ... unprofessional—please don't tell anybody else."
Meg closed her eyes, looking rather like a sleepy kitten, and Miles watched her in silence with a pain at his heart. Something kept saying over and over again: "Six years ago that girl there ran off with Walter Brooke. Six years ago that apparently level-headed, sensible little person was dazzled by the pinchbeck graces of that epicure in sensations." Miles fully granted his charm, his gentle melancholy, his caressing manner; but with it all Miles felt that he was so plainly "a wrong-'un," so clearly second-rate and untrustworthy—and a nice girl ought to recognise these things intuitively.