The moment she said it I was much less certain that they were not. Her next words plunged me still deeper into doubt. She spoke as it were direct from the heart of some uttermost complexity.
"What is the relation between you and me, George?" she demanded.
I considered, my eyes downcast. I felt hers steadily on my face all the time. I spoke in a low voice.
"I'm beginning to know less than ever."
"You'd hardly call it ordinary, would you—conventional and so on?"
"That's quite the last word I should use."
"It's not ordinary because of an extraordinary element that's at the very root of it. You know what that is; it's"—her eyes went towards the punt—"it's all him. He's got us all on the run. Give him his head and he could have the whole world on the run. There's no reason about it; as many people as knew about him would simply be bewitched. So I've taken it for granted that we don't quite come under everyday rules. We have to break and make rules as we go along.... About those questions. They really are all that you want to know—just what he'll do next and so on?" she challenged me.
I think I should have broken in on the spot with a "Yes—I want to know nothing else—nothing at all!" But she gave me no time. Her eyes called my own downcast ones peremptorily up from the floor.
"Because," she said, with the utmost distinctness in the shaping of each syllable, "I notice that since breakfast you've shaved, George. You've also changed your clothes. One does not usually change one's clothes immediately after breakfast. I suppose Mrs Moxon is brushing the others. They needed brushing. They had bits of dried grass and heather on them.... George—George dear—thank you——"
I spoke in little more than a whisper. "For—going out?"