“Yes!” he said, “aversion’s deeper than love or hate because it’s a natural product of the nerves, and we don’t change them.”

“I came to tell you that Soames has been to see me.  He said a thing that frightened me.  He said:  ‘You are still my wife!’”

“What!” ejaculated Jolyon.  “You ought not to live alone.”  And he continued to stare at her, afflicted by the thought that where Beauty was, nothing ever ran quite straight, which, no doubt, was why so many people looked on it as immoral.

“What more?”

“He asked me to shake hands.

“Did you?”

“Yes.  When he came in I’m sure he didn’t want to; he changed while he was there.”

“Ah! you certainly ought not to go on living there alone.”

“I know no woman I could ask; and I can’t take a lover to order, Cousin Jolyon.”

“Heaven forbid!” said Jolyon.  “What a damnable position!  Will you stay to dinner?  No?  Well, let me see you back to town; I wanted to go up this evening.”

“Truly?”

“Truly.  I’ll be ready in five minutes.”

On that walk to the station they talked of pictures and music, contrasting the English and French characters and the difference in their attitude to Art.  But to Jolyon the colours in the hedges of the long straight lane, the twittering of chaffinches who kept pace with them, the perfume of weeds being already burned, the turn of her neck, the fascination of those dark eyes bent on him now and then, the lure of her whole figure, made a deeper impression than the remarks they exchanged.  Unconsciously he held himself straighter, walked with a more elastic step.

In the train he put her through a sort of catechism as to what she did with her days.

Made her dresses, shopped, visited a hospital, played her piano, translated from the French.

She had regular work from a publisher, it seemed, which supplemented her income a little.  She seldom went out in the evening.  “I’ve been living alone so long, you see, that I don’t mind it a bit.  I believe I’m naturally solitary.”

“I don’t believe that,” said Jolyon.  “Do you know many people?”

“Very few.”

At Waterloo they took a hansom, and he drove with her to the door of her mansions.  Squeezing her hand at parting, he said: 

“You know, you could always come to us at Robin Hill; you must let me know everything that happens.  Good-bye, Irene.”

“Good-bye,” she answered softly.

Jolyon climbed back into his cab, wondering why he had not asked her to dine and go to the theatre with him.  Solitary, starved, hung-up life that she had!  “Hotch Potch Club,” he said through the trap-door.  As his hansom debouched on to the Embankment, a man in top-hat and overcoat passed, walking quickly, so close to the wall that he seemed to be scraping it.