`No, he'd hardly swallow me as a substitute breeder. Then where are you supposed to be getting the child?'

`I might have a love-affair in Venice,' she said.

`You might,' he replied slowly. `So that's why you're going?'

`Not to have the love-affair,' she said, looking up at him, pleading.

`Just the appearance of one,' he said.

There was silence. He sat staring out the window, with a faint grin, half mockery, half bitterness, on his face. She hated his grin.

`You've not taken any precautions against having a child then?' he asked her suddenly. `Because I haven't.'

`No,' she said faintly. `I should hate that.'

He looked at her, then again with the peculiar subtle grin out of the window. There was a tense silence.

At last he turned his head and said satirically:

`That was why you wanted me, then, to get a child?'

She hung her head.

`No. Not really,' she said. `What then, really?' he asked rather bitingly.

She looked up at him reproachfully, saying: `I don't know.'

He broke into a laugh.

`Then I'm damned if I do,' he said.

There was a long pause of silence, a cold silence.

`Well,' he said at last. `It's as your Ladyship likes. If you get the baby, Sir Clifford's welcome to it. I shan't have lost anything. On the contrary, I've had a very nice experience, very nice indeed!'---and he stretched in a half-suppressed sort of yawn. `If you've made use of me,' he said, `it's not the first time I've been made use of; and I don't suppose it's ever been as pleasant as this time; though of course one can't feel tremendously dignified about it.'---He stretched again, curiously, his muscles quivering, and his jaw oddly set.

`But I didn't make use of you,' she said, pleading.

`At your Ladyship's service,' he replied.

`No,' she said. `I liked your body.'

`Did you?' he replied, and he laughed. `Well, then, we're quits, because I liked yours.'

He looked at her with queer darkened eyes.

`Would you like to go upstairs now?' he asked her, in a strangled sort of voice.

`No, not here. Not now!' she said heavily, though if he had used any power over her, she would have gone, for she had no strength against him.