“You see,” she was saying, “it is a mistake for people who don’t know each other very well to marry, they would always be getting unpleasant surprises afterwards.  Besides, it would be so uncomfortable; it must be pretty bad to live at close quarters with some one you were—­who you didn’t know very well, with whom you minded about things.”

She had touched on something that did matter now, that might matter very much indeed; Rawson-Clew realised it, and realised with a start of pain, that there might be a great gulf between him and the good comrade after all.  Her quick intuitions and perceptions had bridged it over and led him to forget that he was a man of years and experience while she was a girl, a young, shy, half-wild thing, veiled, and fearing to draw the veil for his experienced eyes.

“Tell me,” he said, facing her and looking very grave and old, “is that how you feel about me?”

She fidgeted the tea-cloth with her foot, but being a Polkington, she was able to answer something.  “We belong to different lots of people,” she said, examining the shape the thing had taken on the floor; “I have got my life here, working in my garden and so on; and you have got yours a long way off among greater things.”

“You have not answered me,” he said.  “Tell me—­am I the man you described?”

He turned her so that she could look at him, the thing she dared not do.  His touch was light, almost momentary, but it was too much, it thrilled through her wildly, irresistibly, and she drew back fearing to do anything else.

“Don’t!” she said, and her voice was sharp with the anger of pain.

He stepped back a pace.  “Thank you,” he said; “I am answered.”

Captain Polkington had been dozing; there really was nothing else to do; but suddenly he was aroused; there was a sound below; the motor moving at last.  Yes, it was going, really going; he went to the window and, taking care not to be seen, watched the car go down the sandy road.  After that he went down-stairs, and finding Johnny, who had finished his watering, persuaded him to come for a stroll on the heath.  They took a basket to bring home anything they might find, and shouted news of their intention to Julia, who did not answer, then set out.

Now, in the present state of their development, motors are not things on which a man can always rely.  More especially is this the case when any one like Mr. Gillat has had anything to do with them.  The obliging Johnny, had arranged the inside of Rawson-Clew’s car, covering up what he thought might be hurt by the sun and blowing sand while it stood at the roadside, and taking into the house when he went in to tea, anything that could be stolen if—­as was quite out of the question—­one came that way with a mind to steal.  Johnny had brought back most of the things and replaced them before Rawson-Clew started, but not quite all.  When the car had got a little distance down the road it, with a perversity worthy of a reasonable being, developed a need for the forgotten item.  Rawson-Clew searched for it, could not find it, discovered that he could not get on without it, and, thinking if not saying something not very complimentary about Mr. Gillat, walked back to the cottage.