He insisted,—
'When did you really become aware of your own heartlessness?'
She sparkled with laughter.
'I think it began life as a sense of humour,' she said, 'and degenerated gradually into its present state of spasmodic infamy.'
He had smiled, but she saw his face suddenly darken, and he got up abruptly, and stood by the fountain, turning his back on her.
'My God,' she thought to herself in terror, 'he has remembered Paul.'
She rose also, and went close to him, slipping her hand through his arm, endeavouring to use, perhaps unconsciously, the powerful weapon of her physical nearness. He did not shake away her hand, but he remained unresponsive, lost in contemplation of the water. She hesitated as to whether she should boldly attack the subject—she knew her danger; he would be difficult to acquire, easy to lose, no more tractable than a young colt—then in the stillness of the night she faintly heard the music of the gramophone playing in the village café.
'Come into the drawing-room and listen to the music, Julian,' she said, pulling at his arm.
He came morosely; they exchanged the court with its pool of light for the darkness of the drawing-room; she felt her way, holding his hand, towards a window seat; sat down, and pulled him down beside her; through the rusty iron grating they saw the sea, lit up by the rising moon.