“And then,” she began and stopped.  Here came in the great space of life into which no one had ever penetrated.  All that she had been saying about her father and her aunts and walks in Richmond Park, and what they did from hour to hour, was merely on the surface.  Hewet was watching her.  Did he demand that she should describe that also?  Why did he sit so near and keep his eye on her?  Why did they not have done with this searching and agony?  Why did they not kiss each other simply?  She wished to kiss him.  But all the time she went on spinning out words.

“A girl is more lonely than a boy.  No one cares in the least what she does.  Nothing’s expected of her.  Unless one’s very pretty people don’t listen to what you say. . . .  And that is what I like,” she added energetically, as if the memory were very happy.  “I like walking in Richmond Park and singing to myself and knowing it doesn’t matter a damn to anybody.  I like seeing things go on—­as we saw you that night when you didn’t see us—­I love the freedom of it—­it’s like being the wind or the sea.”  She turned with a curious fling of her hands and looked at the sea.  It was still very blue, dancing away as far as the eye could reach, but the light on it was yellower, and the clouds were turning flamingo red.

A feeling of intense depression crossed Hewet’s mind as she spoke.  It seemed plain that she would never care for one person rather than another; she was evidently quite indifferent to him; they seemed to come very near, and then they were as far apart as ever again; and her gesture as she turned away had been oddly beautiful.

“Nonsense,” he said abruptly.  “You like people.  You like admiration.  Your real grudge against Hirst is that he doesn’t admire you.”

She made no answer for some time.  Then she said: 

“That’s probably true.  Of course I like people—­I like almost every one I’ve ever met.”

She turned her back on the sea and regarded Hewet with friendly if critical eyes.  He was good-looking in the sense that he had always had a sufficiency of beef to eat and fresh air to breathe.  His head was big; the eyes were also large; though generally vague they could be forcible; and the lips were sensitive.  One might account him a man of considerable passion and fitful energy, likely to be at the mercy of moods which had little relation to facts; at once tolerant and fastidious.  The breadth of his forehead showed capacity for thought.  The interest with which Rachel looked at him was heard in her voice.

“What novels do you write?” she asked.

“I want to write a novel about Silence,” he said; “the things people don’t say.  But the difficulty is immense.”  He sighed.  “However, you don’t care,” he continued.  He looked at her almost severely.  “Nobody cares.  All you read a novel for is to see what sort of person the writer is, and, if you know him, which of his friends he’s put in.  As for