“I couldn’t describe it. It’s more like an atmosphere than anything else. It seems to hang about him. I’ve never felt anything quite like it when I’ve been with anyone else.”
“An atmosphere! Now we’re getting at it.”
He took his heavy hand away from her shoulder.
“A woman feels that sort of thing more sensitively than a man does. Sex! Go on! What about it?”
“But I scarcely know what I mean—really, Dick. No! But it’s—it’s an unsafe atmosphere.”
“Ah!”
“One doesn’t know where one is in it. At least, I don’t. Once in London I was lost for a little while in Regents Park in a fog. It’s—it’s something like that. I couldn’t see the way, and I heard steps and voices that sounded strange and—I don’t know.”
“Find out!”
“That’s all very well. You are terribly selfish, Dick. You don’t care what happens so long as you can paint as you wish to paint. You’d sacrifice me, anyone—”
The girl seemed strangely uneasy. Her usual coolness had left her. The hot blood had come back to her cheeks and glowed there in uneven patches of red. Garstin gazed at her with profound and cruel interest.