By and by she heard a step behind her—­Rawson-Clew.  She had forgotten his existence; she was almost sorry to be reminded of it; she felt so ashamed of herself and her people, so conscious of the gulf between them and him.  So very conscious of this last that she suddenly felt disinclined for the effort of struggling to hide or bridge it.

He caught up with her.  “How has the crochet progressed this week under your care?” he asked her lightly.

“It has not progressed,” she answered; “there are enough mistakes in it now to occupy Denah for a long time.”

He took her basket from her, and she looked at him thoughtfully.  He was just the same as usual, quiet, drawling voice, eyeglass, everything—­she wondered if he were ever different; how he would act, say, in her circumstances.  If they could change bodies, now, and he be Julia Polkington, with her relations, needs and opportunities, what would he do?  Would he still be impassive, deliberate, equal to all occasions?  Would he find it easy to keep his inviolable laws of good-breeding and honour, and so forth?

“There is something I should like to ask you,” she said suddenly.

“Yes?” he inquired.

“Is it much trouble to you to be honest?”

He was a little surprised, though not so much as he would have been earlier in their acquaintance.  “That,” he said, “I expect rather depends on what you mean by honest.  I imagine you don’t refer to lying and stealing, and that sort of thing, since nobody finds it difficult to avoid them.”

“They are not gentlemanly?” she suggested.

“I don’t know that I ever looked at it in that way,” he said; “or, indeed, any way.  One does not think about those sort of things; one does not do them, that’s all.”

She nodded.  The careless change of pronoun, which in a way included her with himself, was not lost upon her.

“In the matter of half-truths,” she inquired; “how about them?”

“I don’t think I have given that subject consideration either,” he answered, rather amused; “there does not seem any need at my age.  One does things, or one does not; abstractions don’t appeal to most men after thirty.”

Again Julia nodded.  “It looks to me,” she said, “as if you take your morality, like your dinner, as a matter of course; it’s always there; you don’t have to bother after it; you don’t really know how it comes, or what it is worth.”

Now and then Rawson-Clew had observed in his acquaintance with Julia, she said things which had a way of lighting him up to himself; this was one of the occasions.  “Possibly you are right,” he said, with faint amusement.  “How do you take yours?  Let us consider yours; I am sure it would be a great deal more interesting.”

“There would be more variety in it,” she said significantly.

“What is your opinion about half-truths?” he inquired, with grave mimicry of her.

     “’Half a truth, however small,
      Is better than no truth at all,’”