“Oh, well,” she added, the vision of Helen and her mockery before her, “I dare say I’m a fool.”  She made as though she were going back into the ballroom, but Hewet stopped her.

“Please explain to me,” he said.  “I feel sure Hirst didn’t mean to hurt you.”

When Rachel tried to explain, she found it very difficult.  She could not say that she found the vision of herself walking in a crocodile with her hair down her back peculiarly unjust and horrible, nor could she explain why Hirst’s assumption of the superiority of his nature and experience had seemed to her not only galling but terrible—­as if a gate had clanged in her face.  Pacing up and down the terrace beside Hewet she said bitterly: 

“It’s no good; we should live separate; we cannot understand each other; we only bring out what’s worst.”

Hewet brushed aside her generalisation as to the natures of the two sexes, for such generalisations bored him and seemed to him generally untrue.  But, knowing Hirst, he guessed fairly accurately what had happened, and, though secretly much amused, was determined that Rachel should not store the incident away in her mind to take its place in the view she had of life.

“Now you’ll hate him,” he said, “which is wrong.  Poor old Hirst—­he can’t help his method.  And really, Miss Vinrace, he was doing his best; he was paying you a compliment—­he was trying—­he was trying—­” he could not finish for the laughter that overcame him.

Rachel veered round suddenly and laughed out too.  She saw that there was something ridiculous about Hirst, and perhaps about herself.

“It’s his way of making friends, I suppose,” she laughed.  “Well—­I shall do my part.  I shall begin—­’Ugly in body, repulsive in mind as you are, Mr. Hirst—­”

“Hear, hear!” cried Hewet.  “That’s the way to treat him.  You see, Miss Vinrace, you must make allowances for Hirst.  He’s lived all his life in front of a looking-glass, so to speak, in a beautiful panelled room, hung with Japanese prints and lovely old chairs and tables, just one splash of colour, you know, in the right place,—­between the windows I think it is,—­and there he sits hour after hour with his toes on the fender, talking about philosophy and God and his liver and his heart and the hearts of his friends.  They’re all broken.  You can’t expect him to be at his best in a ballroom.  He wants a cosy, smoky, masculine place, where he can stretch his legs out, and only speak when he’s got something to say.  For myself, I find it rather dreary.  But I do respect it.  They’re all so much in earnest.  They do take the serious things very seriously.”

The description of Hirst’s way of life interested Rachel so much that she almost forgot her private grudge against him, and her respect revived.

“They are really very clever then?” she asked.

“Of course they are.  So far as brains go I think it’s true what he said the other day; they’re the cleverest people in England.  But—­you ought to take him in hand,” he added.  “There’s a great deal more in him than’s ever been got at.  He wants some one to laugh at him. . . .  The idea of Hirst telling you that you’ve had no experiences!  Poor old Hirst!”