As Mrs. Morgan had observed the meeting, it was necessary to offer her an explanation.  But Jessica gave only the barest facts concerning their acquaintance, and Nancy spoke as though she hardly knew him.

The weather was oppressively hot; in doors or out, little could be done but sit or lie in enervated attitudes, a state of things accordant with Nancy’s mood.  Till late at night she watched the blue starry sky from her open window, seeming to reflect, but in reality wafted on a stream of fancies and emotions.  Jessica’s explanation of the arrival of Lionel Tarrant had strangely startled her; no such suggestion would have occurred to her own mind.  Yet now, she only feared that it might not be true.  A debilitating climate and absolute indolence favoured that impulse of lawless imagination which had first possessed her on the evening of Jubilee Day.  With luxurious heedlessness she cast aside every thought that might have sobered her; even as she at length cast off all her garments, and lay in the warm midnight naked upon her bed.

The physical attraction of which she had always been conscious in Tarrant’s presence seemed to have grown stronger since she had dismissed him from her mind.  Comparing him with Luckworth Crewe, she felt only a contemptuous distaste for the coarse vitality and vigour, whereto she had half surrendered herself, when hopeless of the more ambitious desire.

Rising early, she went out before breakfast, and found that a little rain had fallen.  Grass and flowers were freshened; the air had an exquisite clearness, and a coolness which struck delightfully on the face, after the close atmosphere within doors.  She had paused to watch a fishing-boat off shore, when a cheery voice bade her ‘good-morning,’ and Tarrant stepped to her side.

‘You are fond of this place,’ he said.

‘Not particularly.’

‘Then why do you choose it?’

‘It does for a holiday as well as any other.’

He was gazing at her, and with the look which Nancy resented, the look which made her feel his social superiority.  He seemed to observe her features with a condescending gratification.  Though totally ignorant of his life and habits, she felt a conviction that he had often bestowed this look upon girls of a class below his own.

’How do you like those advertisements of soaps and pills along the pier?’ he asked carelessly.

‘I see no harm in them.’

Perversity prompted her answer, but at once she remembered Crewe, and turned away in annoyance.  Tarrant was only the more good-humoured.

’You like the world as it is?  There’s wisdom in that.  Better be in harmony with one’s time, advertisements and all.’  He added, ’Are you reading for an exam?’

‘I?  You are confusing me with Miss.  Morgan.’

’Oh, not for a moment!  I couldn’t possibly confuse you with any one else.  I know Miss.  Morgan is studying professionally; but I thought you were reading for your own satisfaction, as so many women do now-a-days.’