"Then won't you come out and have some dinner with me? I'm up in town alone, missed the 5.30 train for Kingsport. It's rotten spending the evening alone at an hotel. You'd be doing a work of Christian charity to come."
"I suppose Clare's out of town," thought Muriel. She said: "I really don't think that I'd better leave the flat. Delia might still come." Her hospitable instincts overcame her panic. "Won't you—won't you stay and have supper here with me?"
She had not meant to say it. She did not want it. Even as she spoke she felt the whole of her personality rising in revolt, seeking to drive him from her. But he could not be so cruel as to accept. He would not force her thus to sit alone with him, in the unavoidable intimacy of that room.
He put down his hat with a sigh of relief.
"By Jove, are you sure that you can do with me? It's awfully g—good of you. I do so loathe a beastly evening alone in London."
"He takes it for granted that we've got plenty of food," thought Muriel. "He takes it for granted that I shall be pleased to see him, to wait on him, to give him supper. Oh, how dare he come here? How dare he? How dare he?"
Aloud she said: "Yes, do sit down. Take a cigarette. There are some in that little carved box on the mantelpiece. You don't mind if I go and get the supper ready, do you?"
He stooped to light a paper spill from the fire. "Sure I can't help? Sure I'm no trouble?"
"None, thank you," she said, and left the room.
Out in the kitchen, she did not begin to cook the fish that lay prepared with breadcrumbs and butter on the table. She crouched down upon the single chair, her face hidden in her hands, her body shaking. She felt herself to be outraged and assaulted. The agitation which he aroused in her violated her sense of decency. It was an outrage, a torture that she could be made to suffer by his presence. Did he think of her as a person? Did he remember that one kiss at Scarborough? The memory of his enfolding arms tormented her like the shirt of Nessus. Sham kiss, sham love, sham pitiful adventure, stirred by the recollection of sham peril—nothing more. Was this the emotion that had driven Connie to the river when she saw Eric's letter, knowing what she had done with Ben? Was this the revolt that had burnt and shamed her? What did she feel for Eric, love or hate? Violence of repulsion, or of love? Was this the love that she had always so idealized? No, no, a thousand times no.