At one o'clock Winny knocked at the door and said dinner was ready.
Violet stirred. "What's the good of sitting staring there like a stuck ox?" She raised herself. "Since you are there you can get me that eau-de-Cologne."
He brought it. He bathed her hands and forehead and wiped them with his handkerchief.
She dragged herself downstairs and sat red-eyed through the dinner, the materials for the picnic which Winny had unpacked and spread.
The day wore on. Violet dragged herself to her bed again, and lay there all afternoon while Ransome hung about the house and garden, unable to think, unable to work, or take an interest in anything. He was oppressed by a sense of irremediable calamity.
At four o'clock he made tea and took it to Violet in her room.
She sat up, weak and submissive, and drank, crying softly.
She turned her face to him as she sank back on her pillow. "I'm sorry, Ranny," she said; "but you shouldn't have married me. I'm not that sort. I told you; and you see."
He could not remember when she had ever told him. But it was clear that he saw. For he said to himself, "They say a lot of things they don't mean when they're like this."