`You are good and early,' he said out of the dark. `Was everything all right?'
`Perfectly easy.'
He shut the gate quietly after her, and made a spot of light on the dark ground, showing the pallid flowers still standing there open in the night. They went on apart, in silence.
`Are you sure you didn't hurt yourself this morning with that chair?' she asked.
`No, no!'
`When you had that pneumonia, what did it do to you?'
`Oh nothing! it left my heart not so strong and the lungs not so elastic. But it always does that.'
`And you ought not to make violent physical efforts?'
`Not often.'
She plodded on in an angry silence.
`Did you hate Clifford?' she said at last.
`Hate him, no! I've met too many like him to upset myself hating him. I know beforehand I don't care for his sort, and I let it go at that.'
`What is his sort?'
`Nay, you know better than I do. The sort of youngish gentleman a bit like a lady, and no balls.'
`What balls?'
`Balls! A man's balls!'
She pondered this.
`But is it a question of that?' she said, a little annoyed.
`You say a man's got no brain, when he's a fool: and no heart, when he's mean; and no stomach when he's a funker. And when he's got none of that spunky wild bit of a man in him, you say he's got no balls. When he's a sort of tame.'
She pondered this.
`And is Clifford tame?' she asked.
`Tame, and nasty with it: like most such fellows, when you come up against 'em.'
`And do you think you're not tame?'
`Maybe not quite!'
At length she saw in the distance a yellow light.
She stood still.