Some weeks passed, and the man and the girl saw each other constantly—­three or four times in the week, perhaps more; and the inward irritation grew intense, while their outward relations remained unchanged.

There was a certain brutality that crept into the man’s tones occasionally when he addressed her, a certain savage irritability in manner, that told the girl’s keen intelligence something; some involuntary sighs of hers as she sat near him, and an increasing look of exhaustion on her face, that told him something.  But that was all.

There were no tender passages between them; none of the conventional English flirting—­matters were too serious, and the nature of each too violent to permit of that.  A little bitter, more or less hostile, conversation passed between them on the most trifling subjects in his long afternoon calls.  A little music would be attempted—­that is, he would sing song after song, while she accompanied him, but a song was rarely completed.  Generally, before or at the middle, he would seize the music in a gust of irrepressible and barely-veiled irritability, and fling it on the piano—­yet they attempted the music with unwavering persistence, and both rose to go to the instrument with mutual alacrity.

There they were close to each other—­so close that the warmth and breath of their beings were interchanged.  There in the pursuit of a fallen sheet of music, his head bent down and touched hers.  Once, apparently to regain the leaf, his hand and arm leaned hard upon her lap.  One second, perhaps, no more; but the girl’s whole strained system seemed breaking up at the touch—­her control shattered, like machinery violently reversed.

The music leaf was replaced, but her hands had fallen nerveless from the keys.

“It is hot.  I can’t go on playing.  Put the window open, will you, for me?”

Stephen walked to the window, raised it, and smiled into the dark.

That night it seemed to Stephen he could never force himself to leave the girl.  He prolonged the playing past all reasonable limits, until May’s sister laughingly reminded him that they were only staying in seaside lodgings, and other occupants of the house must be considered.  Stephen reluctantly relinquished the friendly piano, and then stood, with May’s sweet figure beside him, and her upraised face clear to the side vision of his eye, talking to her sister.

At last, when every trifle is exhausted of which he can make conversation, there comes a pause, a silence; he can think of nothing more.  He nerves himself, holds out his hand, and says, “Good-night!”

May, influenced equally by the same indomitable aversion to be separated from him, follows him outside the drawing-room, and another pause is made on the stair.  By this time a fresh stock of chaff and light wit is ready in Stephen’s brain, and he makes use of anything and everything to procure him another moment at her side; but of all the passion within him, of the ardent, impetuous impulse towards her, nothing, not the faintest trace, shows.