“Quite like the old Polperro days,” he replied to one of Mavis’ sallies.

His remark reduced her to momentary thoughtfulness.  The staple dish of the extemporised meal was a pheasant.  Perigal, despite her protests, was heaping up her plate a second time, when he said: 

“Do you know what I was dreading the whole way up?”

“That you’d got into the right train!”

“Scarcely that.  I was funky you’d do the obvious sentimental thing, and wear the old Polperro dress.”

“As if I would!”

“Anyway, you haven’t.  Besides, it’s much too cold.”

He ordered champagne.  Further to play the part of Circe to his Ulysses, she drank a little of this, careless of the pain it might inflict.  Although she was worn down by her anxieties and the pain of her abscess, it gave her an immense thrill of pleasure to notice how soon she recovered her old ascendancy over him.  Now, his admiring eyes never left her face.  Once, when he got up to hand her something, he went out of his way to come behind her to kiss her neck.

“Little Mavis is a fascinating little devil,” he remarked, as he resumed his seat.

“That’s what you thought when I met you at the station.”

“I was tired and worried, and worry destroys love quicker than anything.  Now—­”

“Now!”

“You’ve gone the shortest way to ‘buck’ me up.”

Thus encouraged, Mavis made further efforts to captivate Perigal, and persuade him to fulfill the desire of her heart.  Now, he was constantly about her on any and every excuse, when he would either kiss her or caress her hair.  After dinner, they sat by the fire, where they drank coffee and smoked cigarettes.  Presently, Perigal slipped on the ground beside her, where he leaned his head against her knee, while he fondled one of her feet.  Her fingers wandered in his hair.

“Like old times, sweetheart!” he said,

“Is it?” she laughed.

“It is to me, little Mavis.  I love you!  I love you!  I love you!”

Mavis’s heart leapt.  Life held promise of happiness after all.

“What have you arranged about tonight?” he asked, after a few moments’ silence.

“Nothing unusual.  Why?”

“Must you go back?”

“Why?” she asked, wondering what he was driving at.

“I thought you might stay here.”

“Stay here!” she gasped.

“With me—­as you did in Polperro.”  Then, as she did not speak:  “There’s no reason why you shouldn’t!”

A great horror possessed Mavis.  This, then, was all she had laboured for; all he thought of her.  She had believed that he would have offered immediate marriage.  His suggestion helped her to realise the hopelessness of her situation; how, in the eternal contest between the sexes, she had not only laid all her cards upon the table, but had permitted him to win every trick.  She fell from the summit of her blissful anticipations into a slough of despair.