Balanced between fear and daring, conscious of a scent of hay and verbena and camomile, Bob Pillin stammered: 

“Ye-es.  I—­I’m glad she’s not in, though.”

Her laugh seemed to him terribly unfeeling.

“Oh! oh!  Don’t be foolish.  Sit down.  Isn’t washing one’s head awful?”

Bob Pillin answered feebly: 

“Of course, I haven’t much experience.”

Her mouth opened.

“Oh!  You are—­aren’t you?”

And he thought desperately:  ’Dare I—­oughtn’t I—­couldn’t I somehow take her hand or put my arm round her, or something?’ Instead, he sat very rigid at his end of the sofa, while she sat lax and lissom at the other, and one of those crises of paralysis which beset would-be lovers fixed him to the soul.

Sometimes during this last month memories of a past existence, when chaff and even kisses came readily to the lips, and girls were fair game, would make him think:  ’Is she really such an innocent?  Doesn’t she really want me to kiss her?’ Alas! such intrusions lasted but a moment before a blast of awe and chivalry withered them, and a strange and tragic delicacy—­like nothing he had ever known—­resumed its sway.  And suddenly he heard her say: 

“Why do you know such awful men?”

“What?  I don’t know any awful men.”

“Oh yes, you do; one came here yesterday; he had whiskers, and he was awful.”

“Whiskers?” His soul revolted in disclaimer.  “I believe I only know one man with whiskers—­a lawyer.”

“Yes—­that was him; a perfectly horrid man.  Mother didn’t mind him, but I thought he was a beast.”

“Ventnor!  Came here?  How d’you mean?”

“He did; about some business of yours, too.”  Her face had clouded over.  Bob Pillin had of late been harassed by the still-born beginning of a poem: 

         “I rode upon my way and saw
          A maid who watched me from the door.”

It never grew longer, and was prompted by the feeling that her face was like an April day.  The cloud which came on it now was like an April cloud, as if a bright shower of rain must follow.  Brushing aside the two distressful lines, he said: 

“Look here, Miss Larne—­Phyllis—­look here!”

“All right, I’m looking!”

“What does it mean—­how did he come?  What did he say?”

She shook her head, and her hair quivered; the scent of camomile, verbena, hay was wafted; then looking at her lap, she muttered: 

“I wish you wouldn’t—­I wish mother wouldn’t—­I hate it.  Oh!  Money!  Beastly—­beastly!” and a tearful sigh shivered itself into Bob Pillin’s reddening ears.

“I say—­don’t!  And do tell me, because—­”

“Oh! you know.”

“I don’t—­I don’t know anything at all.  I never—–­”

Phyllis looked up at him.  “Don’t tell fibs; you know mother’s borrowing money from you, and it’s hateful!”