"This is the last moment when I ought to hate you," she said resentfully.
"I know! I know! It should be so! You're frightfully good to me. . ." he cried miserably.
She wondered why he should be miserable. "Won't you sit down again?" she said. He glanced at the door.
"Sir Clifford!" he said. "Won't he. . . won't he be. . .?" She paused a moment to consider. "Perhaps!" she said. And she looked up at him. "I don't want Clifford to know. . . not even to suspect. It would hurt him so much. But I don't think it's wrong, do you?"
"Wrong! Good God, no! You're only too infinitely good to me . . . I can hardly bear it."
He turned aside, and she saw that in another moment he would be sobbing.
"But we needn't let Clifford know, need we?" she pleaded. "It would hurt him so. And if he never knows, never suspects, it hurts nobody."
"Me!" he said, almost fiercely; "he'll know nothing from me! You see if he does. Me give myself away! Ha! Ha!" He laughed hollowly, cynically at such an idea. She watched him in wonder. He said to her: "May I kiss your hand and go? I'll run into Sheffield I think, and lunch there if I may, and be back to tea. May I do anything for you? May I be sure you don't hate me?—and that you won't?"—he ended with a desperate note of cynicism.
"No, I don't hate you," she said. "I think you're nice."
"Ah!" he said to her fiercely, "I'd rather you said that to me than said you love me! It means such a lot more. . . Till afternoon then. I've plenty to think about till then." He kissed her hands humbly and was gone.
"I don't think I can stand that young man," said Clifford at lunch.
"Why?" asked Connie.
"He's such a bounder underneath his veneer. . . just waiting to bounce us."
"I think people have been so unkind to him," said Connie.
`Do you wonder? And do you think he employs his shining hours doing deeds of kindness?"
"I think he has a certain sort of generosity."
