‘You’re very nice,’ he said. ‘Rather a dear. I believe you’re quite without guile really. Why do you trust people so? It’s very foolish of you.’ ‘Is it foolish of me to trust you?’ ‘Incredibly foolish.’ He added, raising his voice and speaking slowly: ‘It’s no good trying to make me--adequate.’ ‘Ah, you like to destroy yourself to me.’ ‘But don’t you see? I go through the days in a sort of apathy; blind and deaf; blinder and deafer every day. I never think, I never care. I’d much better be dead only,--I’m too lazy to shoot myself.’ ‘Oh, Roddy, don’t.’ She covered her ears with her hands. He had never spoken at such length, or with such obvious intent to convince. ‘I’m only trying to warn you,’ he said, rather defiantly, ‘I’m not worth saving. Nobody must _ever_ take me seriously. I’m not worth wasting a moment over. Nobody can do anything with me.’ His mood was verging towards laughter. His face broke up teasingly as he finished speaking and turned to look at her. But she averted her face, drearily pondering. Why had he spoken like that? A self-contempt so settled, so hopeless.... He had seemed to be warning her to keep away from him for her own sake. ‘It’s no good,’ she said suddenly, involuntarily. ‘What’s no good?’ ‘You’re what I choose to think you are. There’s no point in heaping yourself with abuse. You can’t make me dislike you; you can only make me sad. But I suppose that gives you pleasure.’ He was silent. She went on tremulously, ‘And when you--when people say they don’t feel or care--that they’re no good--it only makes me think--I could show them how to feel and care. I could make them happy. I could look after them. I dare say you know that’s--the effect it has on me. That’s why you say it.’ He was still silent. She leaned her head forward against the wall and felt tears smart under her lids. He seemed to be musing, his eyes fixed on the fire, his hands held out to it. ‘Are your hands still cold?’ she said wearily. ‘Get them warm before you go.’ Suddenly he held them out to her. It was a gesture so impulsive, so uncharacteristic it seemed of startling significance; and she could not answer it. ‘Yes, they are cold,’ he said. ‘Let me feel yours. Yours are cold too. What funny hands--so thin and narrow, such delicate bones. Rather lovely.’ He clasped them hard in his own. ‘When I do that they seem to go to nothing.’ She smiled at him dimly, half-tranced, feeling her eyelids droop over her eyes, giving him, with her helpless hands, all of herself; as if, through her finger-tips, he drew her in to himself in a dark stemlessly flowing tide. He stroked her palms, her whole hand, over and over with a lingering careful touch, as if learning the outline by heart. ‘They feel so kind,’ he said musingly. ‘They are, aren’t they, Judy? Dear little kind things--like the rest of you. Are you always kind, Judy?’ ‘Always to you, Roddy, I shouldn’t wonder.’ He relinquished his clasp suddenly, saying with a shake of the head: