“As often as you admit me to your most gracious presence,” he said.

She clapped her hands softly.  “Why, that is even prettier than the stale fish one!  Mr. Green, what can have happened to you?”

“I daren’t tell you,” he said.

A sudden silence fell upon the words.  Juliet puffed the smoke from her cigarette, and watched it rise.  “Well, don’t spoil it, will you?” she said, as it vanished into air.

Green’s hand suddenly gripped a handful of shingle and ground it forcibly.  He did not speak for a second or two.  Then:  “No, I won’t spoil it,” he said, in a low voice.

A moment later he flung the stones abruptly from him and got up.

“You’re not going?” said Juliet.

“Yes, I’ve got work to do.  Shall I take Robin with me?”

There was a dogged note in his voice.  His eyes avoided hers.

Juliet rose slowly.  “Never mind Robin!  Walk a little way with me!” she said.

“I think I’d better go,” said Green restlessly.

“Please!” said Juliet gently.

He turned beside her without a word.  They went down the shingle to the edge of the sand and began to walk along the shore.

For many seconds they walked in silence.  Juliet’s eyes were fixed upon the mighty outline of High Shale Point that stood out like a fortress, dark, impregnable, against the calm of the evening sky.  Her companion sauntered beside her, his hands behind him.  He had thrown away his cigarette.

She spoke at length, slowly, with evident effort.  “I want to tell you—­something—­about myself.”

“Something I really don’t know?” asked Green, his dark face flashing to a smile.

There was no answering smile on Juliet’s face.  “Yes, something you don’t know,” she said soberly.  “It’s just this.  I have much more in common with Mrs. Fielding than you have any idea of.  I have lived for pleasure practically all my life.  I have scrambled for happiness with the rest of the world, and I haven’t found it.  It’s only just lately that I’ve realized why.  I read a book called The Valley of Dry Bones.  Do you know it?  But of course you do.  It is by Dene Strange.  I hate the man—­if it is a man.  And I hate his work—­the bitter cynicism of it, the merciless exposure of humanity at its lowest and meanest.  I don’t know what his ideals are—­if he has any.  I think he is probably very wicked, but detestably—­oh, damnably—­clever.  I burnt the book I hated it so.  But I felt—­afterwards—­as if I had been burnt, seared by hot irons—­ashamed—­most cruelly ashamed.”  Juliet’s voice sank almost to a whisper.  “Because—­life really is like that—­one vast structure of selfishness—­and in many ways I have helped to make it so.”

She stopped.  Green was looking at her attentively.  He spoke at once with decision.  “I know the book.  I’ve read it.  It’s an exaggeration—­probably intentional.  It wasn’t written—­obviously—­for the super-sensitive.”