‘Oh, if there’s nothing more to know, then you are----’ ‘What?’ ‘More or less--as far as I can tell----’ ‘What?’ She whispered. ‘A darling.’ ‘Ah, thank you.’ He added rapidly, in the full soft voice of laughter: ‘Thank you, darling.’ ‘Now we’ve both said it. Roddy, aren’t we absurd?’ ‘No, very sensible.’ ‘Did you like it?’ ‘I adored it.’ ‘Roddy, are we flirting?’ ‘Are we?’ ‘If we are, it’s your fault. You make me feel sort of stimulated. I didn’t flirt with Martin.’ ‘I’m very glad to hear it. Martin wouldn’t have liked it at all.’ They laughed and danced on. He held her very close, the cold rim of his ear touching her forehead. ‘To think I’ve never danced before!’ ‘Why haven’t you?’ ‘Nobody to dance with.’ ‘Nobody?’ ‘Nobody at all.’ ‘Have you been living on your little lone since I went away?’ ‘Ever since then.’ ‘Well, now I’ve come back we’ll dance a lot, won’t we?’ ‘Oh yes. But you’ll disappear again, I know you will.’ ‘Not yet. And not for long.’ She could have cried, he was so comforting. He spun, holding her tightly, stopped, held her a moment more, and let her go as the record came to an end. She watched him as he went, with that secret of idle grace in his movements, to switch off the gramophone. He looked pale and composed as ever, while she was flushed, throbbing and exhausted with excitement. She stood at the open French windows and leaned towards the cool night air; and he found her silent when he came back. ‘A penny for them, Judith.’ ‘I was thinking--what extraordinary things one says. I suppose it’s the dancing. It seems so incredibly easy to behave as one naturally wouldn’t----’ ‘I find that myself,’ he said solemnly. ‘The--the unsuitable things that generally stay inside one’s head,--they spring to one’s lips, don’t they?’ ‘They do.’ ‘Values are quite changed. Don’t you think so?’ She must make him realize that she was not really a cheap flirtatious creature: re-establish her dignity in his eyes. She had behaved so lightly he might be led to think of her and treat her without respect, and laugh at her behind her back after she had ceased to divert him. It was very worrying. ‘Quite, quite changed,’ he said. ‘Isn’t it queer? I suppose--it doesn’t do much harm? One oughtn’t to think worse of a person for----’ He threw back his head to laugh at his ease, silently, as always, as if his joke were too deep down and individual for audible laughter. ‘Are you laughing at me, Roddy?’ ‘I can’t help it. You’re so terribly funny. You’re the funniest person I’ve ever met.’ ‘Why am I?’ ‘You’re so incredibly serious.’ ‘I’m not--not always.’ ‘I’m afraid you are. I’m afraid you’re terribly introspective.’ ‘Am I? Is that wrong? Roddy, please don’t laugh at me. It leaves me out if you laugh by yourself like that. I could laugh _with_ you at any thing, if you’d let me----’ she pleaded. ‘Anything--even yourself?’ She pondered. ‘I don’t know. Perhaps not. That’s a weakness, isn’t it?’