`Just as well,' he said.

She wondered what he meant. But she was all aglow with her reception, carried away by this little flattering ceremonial on her behalf.

`Winifred,' said the father, `have you a pair of shoes for Miss Brangwen? You had better change at once -- '

Gudrun went out with her bouquet in her hand.

`Quite a remarkable young woman,' said the father to Gerald, when she had gone.

`Yes,' replied Gerald briefly, as if he did not like the observation.

Mr Crich liked Gudrun to sit with him for half an hour. Usually he was ashy and wretched, with all the life gnawed out of him. But as soon as he rallied, he liked to make believe that he was just as before, quite well and in the midst of life -- not of the outer world, but in the midst of a strong essential life. And to this belief, Gudrun contributed perfectly. With her, he could get by stimulation those precious half- hours of strength and exaltation and pure freedom, when he seemed to live more than he had ever lived.

She came to him as he lay propped up in the library. His face was like yellow wax, his eyes darkened, as it were sightless. His black beard, now streaked with grey, seemed to spring out of the waxy flesh of a corpse. Yet the atmosphere about him was energetic and playful. Gudrun subscribed to this, perfectly. To her fancy, he was just an ordinary man. Only his rather terrible appearance was photographed upon her soul, away beneath her consciousness. She knew that, in spite of his playfulness, his eyes could not change from their darkened vacancy, they were the eyes of a man who is dead.

`Ah, this is Miss Brangwen,' he said, suddenly rousing as she entered, announced by the man-servant. `Thomas, put Miss Brangwen a chair here -- that's right.' He looked at her soft, fresh face with pleasure. It gave him the illusion of life. `Now, you will have a glass of sherry and a little piece of cake. Thomas --'

`No thank you,' said Gudrun. And as soon as she had said it, her heart sank horribly. The sick man seemed to fall into a gap of death, at her contradiction. She ought to play up to him, not to contravene him. In an instant she was smiling her rather roguish smile.

`I don't like sherry very much,' she said. `But I like almost anything else.'

The sick man caught at this straw instantly.

`Not sherry! No! Something else! What then? What is there, Thomas?'

`Port wine -- curacao --'

`I would love some curacao --' said Gudrun, looking at the sick man confidingly.

`You would. Well then Thomas, curacao -- and a little cake, or a biscuit?'

`A biscuit,' said Gudrun. She did not want anything, but she was wise.

`Yes.'

He waited till she was settled with her little glass and her biscuit. Then he was satisfied.

`You have heard the plan,' he said with some excitement, `for a studio for Winifred, over the stables?'

`No!' exclaimed Gudrun, in mock wonder.