signature. Ellen Melville was a ridiculous name for one of the most
beautiful people who have ever lived. It was like climbing to a towered
castle on a high eagle-haunted cliff and finding that it was called
"Seaview." She was amazingly beautiful now, burning against the grey
weather with her private fire; and she had been beautiful the night
before, in that baggy blue overall that only the most artless female
creature would have worn. But she had looked even younger then; he
remembered how, as she had opened the door, she had lifted a glowing and
receptive face like a child who had been having a lovely time at a
party. It occurred to him to question what the lovely time that she had
been having in that dreary office could possibly be. And into the pretty
print of the scene on his mind, like a humped marine beast rising
through a summer sea, there obtruded the recollection of the little
solicitor, the graceless embarrassment that he had shown at the
beginning of the interview by purposeless rubbings of his hands and
twisting of the ankles, the revelation of ugly sexual quality which he
had given by his shame at the story of the bed that was made an altar.
He looked at her sharply and said to himself: "I wonder...."

Oh, surely not! The note of her face was pure expectancy. As yet she had
come upon nothing fundamental of any kind. He had no prepossessions in
favour of innocence, and he put people who did not make love in the same
class as vegetarians, but he was immensely relieved. He would have hated
this fine thing to have fallen into clumsy hands.

There was, he realised, not the smallest excuse for staying with her any
longer. "Good-bye; I hope I'll see you at the meeting," he said; and
then, since he remembered how keen she was on being businesslike, "and
look after my villa for me."