`This is the last moment when I ought to hate you,' she said resentfully.

`I know! I know! It should be so! You're frightfully good to me...' he cried miserably.

She wondered why he should be miserable. `Won't you sit down again?' she said. He glanced at the door.

`Sir Clifford!' he said, `won't he...won't he be...?' She paused a moment to consider. `Perhaps!' she said. And she looked up at him. `I don't want Clifford to know not even to suspect. It would hurt him so much. But I don't think it's wrong, do you?'

`Wrong! Good God, no! You're only too infinitely good to me...I can hardly bear it.'

He turned aside, and she saw that in another moment he would be sobbing.

`But we needn't let Clifford know, need we?' she pleaded. `It would hurt him so. And if he never knows, never suspects, it hurts nobody.'

`Me!' he said, almost fiercely; `he'll know nothing from me! You see if he does. Me give myself away! Ha! Ha!' he laughed hollowly, cynically, at such an idea. She watched him in wonder. He said to her: `May I kiss your hand arid go? I'll run into Sheffield I think, and lunch there, if I may, and be back to tea. May I do anything for you? May I be sure you don't hate me?---and that you won't?'---he ended with a desperate note of cynicism.

`No, I don't hate you,' she said. `I think you're nice.'

`Ah!' he said to her fiercely, `I'd rather you said that to me than said you love me! It means such a lot more...Till afternoon then. I've plenty to think about till then.' He kissed her hands humbly and was gone.

`I don't think I can stand that young man,' said Clifford at lunch.

`Why?' asked Connie.

`He's such a bounder underneath his veneer...just waiting to bounce us.'

`I think people have been so unkind to him,' said Connie.

`Do you wonder? And do you think he employs his shining hours doing deeds of kindness?'

`I think he has a certain sort of generosity.'

`Towards whom?'

`I don't quite know.'

`Naturally you don't. I'm afraid you mistake unscrupulousness for generosity.'

Connie paused. Did she? It was just possible. Yet the unscrupulousness of Michaelis had a certain fascination for her. He went whole lengths where Clifford only crept a few timid paces. In his way he had conquered the world, which was what Clifford wanted to do. Ways and means...? Were those of Michaelis more despicable than those of Clifford? Was the way the poor outsider had shoved and bounced himself forward in person, and by the back doors, any worse than Clifford's way of advertising himself into prominence? The bitch-goddess, Success, was trailed by thousands of gasping, dogs with lolling tongues. The one that got her first was the real dog among dogs, if you go by success! So Michaelis could keep his tail up.