`Yes! But not you.'

She looked in his face anxiously. It was thin, and the cheekbones showed. But his eyes smiled at her, and she felt at home with him. There it was: suddenly, the tension of keeping up her appearances fell from her. Something flowed out of him physically, that made her feel inwardly at ease and happy, at home. With a woman's now alert instinct for happiness, she registered it at once. `I'm happy when he's there!' Not all the sunshine of Venice had given her this inward expansion and warmth.

`Was it horrid for you?' she asked as she sat opposite him at table. He was too thin; she saw it now. His hand lay as she knew it, with the curious loose forgottenness of a sleeping animal. She wanted so much to take it and kiss it. But she did not quite dare.

`People are always horrid,' he said.

`And did you mind very much?'

`I minded, as I always shall mind. And I knew I was a fool to mind.'

`Did you feel like a dog with a tin can tied to its tail? Clifford said you felt like that.'

He looked at her. It was cruel of her at that moment: for his pride had suffered bitterly.

`I suppose I did,' he said.

She never knew the fierce bitterness with which he resented insult.

There was a long pause.

`And did you miss me?' she asked.

`I was glad you were out of it.'

Again there was a pause.

`But did people believe about you and me?' she asked.

`No! I don't think so for a moment.'

`Did Clifford?'

`I should say not. He put it off without thinking about it. But naturally it made him want to see the last of me.'

`I'm going to have a child.'

The expression died utterly out of his face, out of his whole body. He looked at her with darkened eyes, whose look she could not understand at all: like some dark-flamed spirit looking at her.

`Say you're glad!' she pleaded, groping for his hand. And she saw a certain exultance spring up in him. But it was netted down by things she could not understand.

`It's the future,' he said.

`But aren't you glad?' she persisted.

`I have such a terrible mistrust of the future.'