When next he saw her face by the light of a window, she at the same instant turned her eyes on him; it was as if each wanted to know correctly how the other had been looking in the darkness, and the effect was a challenge.

Like one retreating a step, she lowered her eyes.  “I am tired,” she said.  “I shall go in.”

“Let us stroll round once more.”

“No, I am going in.”

“If you are afraid——­” he said, with a slight smile.

She took his arm again.  “Though it is too bad of me to keep you out,” she said, as they went on, “for you are shivering.  Is it the night air that makes you shiver?” she asked mockingly.

But she shivered a little herself, as if with a presentiment that she might be less defiant if he were less thoughtful.  For a month or more she had burned to teach him a lesson, but there was a time before that when, had she been sure he was in earnest, she would have preferred to be the pupil.

Two ladies came out of an arbour where they had been drinking coffee, and sauntered towards the hotel.  It was a tiny building, half concealed in hops and reached by three steps, and Tommy and his companion took possession.  He groped in the darkness for a chair for her, and invited her tenderly to sit down.  She said she preferred to stand.  She was by the open window, her fingers drumming on the sill.  Though he could not see her face, he knew exactly how she was looking.

“Sit down,” he said, rather masterfully.

“I prefer to stand,” she repeated languidly.

He had a passionate desire to take her by the shoulders, but put his hand on hers instead, and she permitted it, like one disdainful but helpless.  She said something unimportant about the stillness.

“Is it so still?” he said in a low voice.  “I seem to hear a great noise.  I think it must be the beating of my heart.”

“I fancy that is what it is,” she drawled.

“Do you hear it?”

“No.”

“Did you ever hear your own heart beat, Alice?”

“No.”

He had both her hands now.  “Would you like to hear it?”

She pulled away her hands sharply.  “Yes,” she replied with defiance.

“But you pulled away your hands first,” said he.

He heard her breathe heavily for a moment, but she said nothing. 
“Yes,” he said, as if she had spoken, “it is true.”

“What is true?”

“What you are saying to yourself just now—­that you hate me.”

She beat the floor with her foot.

“How you hate me, Alice!”

“Oh, no.”

“Yes, indeed you do.”

“I wonder why,” she said, and she trembled a little.

“I know why.”  He had come close to her again.  “Shall I tell you why?”

She said “No,” hurriedly.

“I am so glad you say No.”  He spoke passionately, and yet there was banter in his voice, or so it seemed to her.  “It is because you fear to be told; it is because you had hoped that I did not know.”