Sally was struck by the word. Confidence! That was what Gaga needed! Half the time he was afraid of his own shadow. Quickly her brain refashioned the meal she had had with Gaga. Poor lamb, he hadn't got any confidence! Madam had kept him down. He wanted rousing. Once get his blood up, and he might do something really.... For the first time Sally was genuinely interested in Gaga. She had never honestly thought of helping him for his own sake. All she had thought of was her own future. And now her mother had put Gaga in a new light. Sally almost thought well of him. He might be rather bigger than she had supposed. What if he were? Yes, but what did Gaga want of Sally? You don't kiss a girl because she is anything but a girl. It was a profundity. Gaga had kissed Sally because.... Sally turned away to hide from any glance of her sleeping mother the gleeful smile which had made her face radiant. She had been kissed because she had encouraged Gaga to kiss her; but he was so timid that he would never have done it if he had not very greatly desired to kiss her. She wondered what he thought about her. He talked of their being "friends"; he was half silly about her; he had kissed her and had wanted to kiss her again. Having begun, he would want to go on kissing her. And then, what? He would be afraid to kiss her at their next meeting; but he would all the time be watching his opportunity to do so. Was Sally going to give him his opportunity? Was she going to give him the confidence necessary for the task of using his opportunity? She was still gay, still amused and self-confident; but there was a doubt in her eyes. She wanted to know more. She wanted to know all that was still hidden from her. All the same, during the whole of her questioning of Gaga's ultimate aspirations, she never once lost the consciousness that the next step lay with herself. Was she going to give him that necessary confidence? "Oh, I think so," thought Sally, deliberately; and smiled almost to laughter as she lay with her face upon the pillow and was aware of the whole of her warm body, from the tip of her nose to her round heels and the eager fingers bunched close to her breast. "I think so...." she repeated, with more humorousness. She had a vision of Gaga with his chocolate eyes glowing into her own as the result of the wine and his proximity to herself. She saw his thin lips stretched, and the faint red under his grey cheeks, and his thin hair. She felt his lips clumsily kissing her ear, the nervous clutching of his arms. Sally was pleased. She knew that sleep was almost upon her, and heard Mrs. Minto's deep breathing a foot away from the back of her head. Yawningly, she snuggled more comfortably into her pillow, and as consciousness slipped away a distant murmur seemed to repeat: "Yes ... yes.... I ... think so." In a mood of expectant triumph she slept, sure for the moment of the course of future events. xviii