What did hurt her was once when he said: “You have one abominable habit. You pose with your hair. I should recommend you to have it cut off, then you won’t have it to think about so much.” “Oh, _should_ you?” she replied angrily. “I _should_ be sensible to cut it off, shouldn’t I, seeing it’s the only good-looking part of me!” She hadn’t meant to say that. It slipped out. “Is it?” he said, and for a single fatuous second she had a wild idea that he was going to pay her a magnificent compliment. But he added: “I mean--it never struck me as particularly good-looking. But then I’m no judge of hair--only of music.” She could discern in every inflection of his voice latent hostility. There was no doubt he disliked her intensely. Latterly, too, she had become increasingly conscious of a mysteriously antagonistic atmosphere when he was with her. It reacted on her playing, causing her at times to give deplorable exhibitions. It was not nervousness. It was something in him that was always mutely hostile to something in her. The sensation, at first interesting, became extraordinarily irksome after a while. Once, when a poor performance of one of Chopin’s Ballades had evoked sarcasm and abuse almost beyond endurance, she suddenly left the music-stool and stood facing him with her back to the instrument. “It’s no good,” she cried vehemently. “It’s not _my_ fault. I’ve never played as bad as that in my life. It’s _you_. I can’t play when you’re present. Don’t know--can’t explain it, but it is so.” He looked surprised. “Very strange,” he said reflectively--“and unfortunate.” She had expected him to be witheringly sarcastic. But he took it with urbane philosophy. “Well,” he said, “I suppose if you feel like that it can’t be helped. We shall simply have to make the best of it.” Which was irritatingly logical.... § 4