“No.  No.”

“And—­why not?”

He was horribly cool and calm.

“Because I don’t want to marry you.  I don’t want to marry anybody.”

“Good God!  What do you want, then?”

“I want to go away and earn my own living as other women do.”

The absurdity of it melted him.  He could have gone down on his knees at her feet and kissed her cold hands.  He wondered afterward why on earth he hadn’t.  Then he remembered that all the time she had kept her hands locked behind her.

“You poor child, you don’t want to earn your own living.  I’ll tell you what you do want.  You want to get away from home.”

“And what if I do?  You’ve seen what it’s like.  Would you stay in it a day longer than you could help if you were me?”

“Of course I wouldn’t.  Of course I’ve seen what it’s like.  I saw it the first time I saw you here in this detestable house.  I want to take you away out of it.  I think I wanted to take you away then.”

“Oh, no.  Not then.  Not so long ago as that.”

It was as if she had said, “Not that.  That makes it too hard.  Any cruelty you like but that, or I can’t go through with it.”

“Yes,” he said, “as long ago as that.”

“You can’t take me away.”

“Can’t I?  I can take you anywhere.  And I will.  Anywhere you like.  You’ve only got to say.  I know I can make you happy.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I know you.”

“That’s what you’re always saying.  And you know nothing about me.  Nothing.  Nothing.”

She said to herself:  “He doesn’t.  He doesn’t even know why I’m going.”

“I know a lot more than you think.  And a lot more than you know yourself.  I know that you’re not happy as you are, and I know that you can’t live without happiness.  If you’re not happy you’ll be ill; more horribly ill, perhaps, than Alice.  Look at Alice.”

“I’m not like Alice.”

“Not now.  Not next year.  Not for ten years, perhaps, or twenty.  But you don’t know what you may be.”

She raised her head.

“I shall never be like that.  Never.”

Rowcliffe laughed.

It struck her then that that was what she ought never to have said if she wanted to carry out her purpose.

“When I say I’m not like Ally I mean that I’m not so dependent on people.  I’m not gentle like Ally.  I’m not as loving and I’m not as womanly.  In fact, I’m not womanly at all.”

“My dear child, do you suppose it matters to me what you’re not, as long as I love you as you are?”

“No,” she said, “you don’t love me really.  You only think you do.”

She clung to that.

“Why do you say that, Gwenda?”

“Because, if you did, I should have known it before now.”

“Well, considering that you do know it now—­”

“I mean, you’d have said so before.”