‘You shouldn’t be.... However, I’ve warned you.’ ‘Yes, you’ve warned me.’ She smiled at him sadly. In a minute she must tell him to go. They would be coming out of the Hall, bursting into the room to discover the cause of her absence. ‘Are you tired?’ he said. She nodded, realizing suddenly the collapsed forward droop of her body, the whole pose of deadly fatigue. ‘I’ve been very ill, you know.’ ‘Oh, Judy! You never told me. You let me take you for that bloody cold drive. You’ll be ill again.’ ‘It’s all right. I shan’t be ill again.’ ‘You _are_ naughty,’ he said, looking at her anxiously. He never could bear people to be ill or in pain. ‘Come and lie down at once on the sofa,’ he said. She obeyed him, and let him arrange the cushions beneath her shoulders, with a delicious sense of dependence. ‘The drive won’t have hurt me,’ she said, ‘because I enjoyed it so much.’ He stood looking down at her. ‘Did you enjoy it?’ he said softly. ‘Yes, didn’t you?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Wasn’t it a queer unreal drive?’ ‘Quite unreal, I suppose.’ ‘I wish it had never stopped.’ He made no answer to this but still stood watching her. ‘You’ll have to go, Roddy. They mustn’t find you. Besides you’ll be missing your dinner.’ ‘I’ve missed that long ago, I should think.’ ‘Oh, Roddy, how awful! I’ve made you miss your dinner.’ ‘I know. It’s monstrous of you. And I’m so hungry.’ ‘I’ve missed mine too but I’m not hungry.... Roddy, what will Tony say to you?’ ‘He’ll be very much annoyed.’ ‘Shall you say you were with me? He wouldn’t like that, would he?’ ‘No.’ ‘Tony is jealous of me. Once he looked at me with pure hatred. I’ve never forgotten it. Does he love you?’ ‘I think he does.’ ‘I think he does too. Do you love him? You needn’t answer. I know I mustn’t ask you that.’ ‘You can ask me anything you like.’ But he did not answer. ‘It is so terrible to be hated. Tell him I won’t do you any harm.’ But perhaps that was not true. Perhaps she meant endless mischief. Supposing she were to take Roddy from Tony, from all his friends and lovers, from all his idle Parisian and English life, and attach him to herself, tie him and possess him: that would mean giving him cares, responsibilities: it might mean changing him from his free and secret self into something ordinary, domesticated, resentful. Perhaps his lovers and friends would be well advised to gather round him jealously and guard him from the female. She saw herself for one moment as a creature of evil design, dangerous to him, and took her hand away from his that held it lightly. ‘I’ll tell him you won’t do me any harm,’ he repeated absently. He was staring into her face. ‘You’re going away now,’ she said, ‘and I don’t know when I shall see you again.’ ‘I don’t know either,’ he said smiling. ‘To-morrow you’ll have forgotten. But I shan’t forget this evening.’ ‘Nor shall I. I don’t forget you, Judy. I sometimes wish I could. I’m a little afraid of you.’ ‘Afraid of me?’