‘I was very much surprised at the way you wrote,’ he said. ‘How do you mean, surprised, Roddy?’ she said timidly. She had known all along in the deepest layer of her consciousness that something like this would happen. Permanent happiness had never been for her. It was not much of a shock. In a moment that night was a far, unreal memory. ‘Well’--he hesitated. ‘If a man wants to ask a girl to--marry him he generally asks her himself--do you see?’ ‘You mean--it was outrageous of me not to wait--to write like that?’ ‘I thought it a little odd.’ ‘Oh, but Roddy, surely--surely that’s one of those worn-out conventions.... Surely a woman has a perfect right to say she--loves a man--if she wants to--it’s simply a question of having the courage.... I can’t see why not.... I’ve always believed one should....’ It was no good trying to expostulate, to bluff like that, with his dead face confronting her. He would not be taken in by any such lying gallantries. How did one combat people whose features never gave way by so much as a quiver? She leaned against the wooden fence and tried to fix her eyes upon the may-tree opposite. Very far, but clear, she heard her mother at the other end of the garden, calling her name: but that was another Judith. ‘I’m afraid you’ve misunderstood me,’ he said. ‘Yes. I’ve misunderstood you. You see--this sort of thing has never happened to me before and I thought ... when a person said.... Why did you say.... I didn’t know people said that without meaning it.... I suppose we must mean different things by it. That’s what it is. Well....’ Her voice was terrible: a little panting whine. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’ Probably that was true: he had forgotten he had ever said: ‘I love you.’ She could not remind him; for in any case he would not be affected. What were three little words?... And after all, she had probably more or less forced him to say them: she had wanted to hear them so much, she had driven him to say them. Yes, he had groaned, and quickly repeated them to keep her quiet, stop her mouth so that he could go on kissing her. She said: ‘But why, Roddy, _why_ did you take me out ... behave as you did ... kiss me so--so.... I don’t understand why you bothered ... why you seemed....’ He was silent. O God! If only he would wound and wound with clean thrusts of truth, instead of standing there mute, deaf. ‘Roddy, after all these years, these _years_ we’ve known each other, can’t you tell me the truth? We were good friends once, weren’t we?’ ‘Yes, I think so.’ ‘Oh, I see! I see! And you could never feel like being--more than that.’ He shook his head. ‘I see, Roddy.’ The pain was sharp now, hard to fight down. ‘I see. And you thought there had better be an end ... because you were never going to love me: and I obviously--was it obviously?--was becoming more and more--foolish--and tiresome. So you thought--you’d say good-bye--like that--and then go away for good. Was that it!’