“Then all your friends must keep you gently simmering,” he said. “You mustn’t be allowed to be terribly happy or terribly unhappy. Or you’d blow yourself out like a candle. But I don’t agree at all: I shall like being old; I shan’t then have desires and expectations which I fear to put to the test. I shall be a gentle old man with a beard, and a bath-chair, and some grandchildren, and some gout, and no memory, and no desires. But, enough of that. Let’s observe the features of the landscape. There’s the town beginning to twinkle with lights, and there’s the Marina with the evening boat just coming in. And there’s that wonderful Monte Solaro, where we’ll go to-morrow if you like a long walk. At the top you can see fifty thousand miles in every direction, and there are tawny lilies in the grass, also quantities of insects with quantities of legs. And here’s the villa. Blessed place but rather sad. Yet I have been awfully happy here sometimes. You know I spent my honeymoon here with Violet.” That was designed to prick her, and excellently well it did so, for Pamela had not forgotten that little tragedy of Violet’s dislike of him, which he had talked of on the terrace at Stanier. And now he clearly conveyed to her that Violet’s coldness had infused the villa with the bitterness of sweet memories. As they entered together in the cool dusk, there was lying on the table just inside the door a letter for him, and she heard him mutter to himself rather than say to her, “Ah, that’s from Violet,” and, opening it, he instantly became absorbed in it. To Pamela that was the definite challenge: it was as if Violet’s glove had been thrown on the floor between them, and all aflame she went on up the stairs, and into her room, which stood at the head of them. So it was Violet for whom he still ached and thirsted, and the knowledge was a spur to her passion. The cause of his cool friendliness to herself, vague and indefinite before, was firmly outlined now; she knew what stood in her way, and what must be demolished. After all, he had asked her here alone; that argued strongly in favour of her success, and it was up to her to make good the footing he had given her. It was still the thought of Violet which occupied him.... Now that she knew that, she could act on her knowledge: she must use her utmost seduction, not alone for her own enhancement but to point the contrast between Violet’s lovelessness and herself. And without doubt she held an advantage: he and she were alone together in this spell-struck island with all the setting for passion; they were both young, and she was a beautiful woman.... His preoccupation with Violet had blinded him: he had not seen with what intensity she wanted him. He had said that he never counted on anything until it was given him: what could that mean except that he was not certain about her? There should be no further doubt about that....