Colin took a delicate pleasure that night in not allowing Uncle Ronald to drink more than one glass of port. He had told Violet that he would make him tipsy every night till she did as she was told and informed her father that he was not to regard Stanier as his home any longer; now, since she had been obedient, he would see that Uncle Ronald was lamentably sober. He could play whist to-night in fact, and Violet and her mother must make up the table for old Lady Yardley. This left him and Pamela free, and presently he strolled out with her on the terrace. “It was delightful of you to propose yourself,” he said, “though, upon my word, I felt it was very selfish of me to let you come. How can I prevent your having a fearfully dull Sunday with nobody here? You’ve missed Aunt Hester: she adds a little spice sometimes to the plain family pudding.” Pamela glanced up at the noble façade of the house. “And to the suburban villa,” she said. “No wonder you adore it. Be it ever so humble, Colin, there’s no place like home.” Colin had been reflecting what he should do with Pamela. He had seen all that Violet saw, but his opportunity did not allure him. She was magnificently handsome, but she conveyed nothing to his senses. She was all very well as a unit, in the general crowd; she talked nonsense, she made him laugh, but he had no earthly use for her beyond that. He knew very well what she was after: what she was after walked by her side now, and his own entire indifference to her made that appear an unwarranted liberty. In his summary of her, she wanted--that was so characteristic of some women’s love--she wanted to possess him, by making herself indispensable to him. That was the way a woman worked. She put it that she gave herself to a man, whereas in reality she aimed at just the opposite, for she meant the man to give himself to her. She wanted always to undermine a man’s independence, and subject him to herself. She used her beauty, her wit, her short skirts, her powder-puff all for the same end, to enslave him to his desire for her. That sapped his strength, it sheared him of his manhood, even as Delilah cut Samson’s mane, so that he was helpless in her hands. A woman’s avowed abandonment of herself, her yielding, her weakness were all fetters of steel with which she cramped and enchained the man: her weakness, indeed, was precisely her strength. And she called this rapacity tenderness! It was the tenderness of a leech which softly fastens itself and softly clings till it is satiated with the blood of its victim. Then full-fed it drops off.