“Helen? Does Helen know him?” “Oh, rather. She translates his books into French.” Again Catherine was surprised. “Books? I didn’t know he wrote books! On music, I suppose?” “No, not on music.” “On what, then?” “Economic history.” Once again Catherine was surprised.... “He’s a curious chap,” George went on. “Economist and musician combined. Queer compound. Helen likes him. She says his music’s all the better for having the brains of an economist put into it, also his economics don’t lose anything from being infused with a dash of temperament. Can’t say I understand it myself, anyway.” § 10 And at the corner of Gifford Road he suddenly said: “I suppose our engagement needn’t be a particularly long one, need it?” She said: “Why? Do you want to break it off?” He laughed, not altogether uproariously. “No, no.... I mean--you know what I mean. Look here, why shouldn’t we get married in the New Year?” “Married?” she echoed vaguely. She looked at him as if the very last thing an engaged girl thinks of is of getting married. “Why not?” he said, point blank. “I know of no reason at all,” she replied coldly, and was conscious that she was echoing something she had heard before. The stateliness of the phrase fascinated her. “Then----” he began, and kissed her passionately. But the passion did not thrill her. It was weak and watery compared with the stuff in “Jeau d’Eaux.” Besides, she had grown blasé of his kisses. Every night, week after week.... He kissed her again. He fondled her hair. He got hold of heaps of it and crushed it voluptuously in his hand. This was a new experience, and not devoid of interest to her. But even this became stale in a very short time. He kissed her once more. “Please!” she said, after some minutes of this sort of thing. “I _must_ go.... Really I must.” So, with a long, lingering, sentimental caress he left her. And as she climbed the stairs to the attic bedroom that night her one thought was: “Fancy me marrying George Trant! _Me_!” The idea at firsy seemed fantastic. But after a while she accepted it as a more or less logical sequence. And he was undoubtedly in love with her. And she with him? Oh yes. At least.... “Why not?” she asked herself, and echo within her answered solemnly, “I know of no reason at all....” CHAPTER XII DISCONTENT § 1 HER first periodic “supervision” by Razounov took place early in the New Year, and once again coincided with an engagement of Razounov to play Chopin at the Bockley Hippodrome. He puffed serenely at a cigarette while she played the Kreutzer Sonata. At the end he said: “Nicely, oh yais, quite nicely.... And thees ees--let me see--thees ees Mees--Mees--” “Weston,” put in Verreker. “Ah, yais, ... plays quite nicely, eh? ... A leetle more technique, and--more--more--what ees the word?--characterization, eh?” Verreker nodded.