He found the suffragette, looking sad, playing a forlorn game of solitaire in forlorn surroundings in the little hotel sitting-room. With her hat off she looked not so ugly, but more insignificant. Her hair seemed as if it would never decide whether to be fair or dark until greyness overtook it and settled the question. It had been tidied under protest, and already strands of it were creeping over her ears, like deserters leaving a fortress by stealth. The room was papered and ceiled and upholstered in drab, there were also drab photographs of unlovable bygones on the walls, and some drab artificial flowers in a drab pot on the table. There are some colour schemes that kill romance. Directly the gardener felt the loveless air of the place, he plunged headlong into the cold interview. Like a bather who, on feeling the chill of the sea, hastens desperately to throw it around him from head to foot. “I have been telling lies,” said the gardener. “I have been crying,” said the suffragette. They each thought that it was thoughtless of the other to be so egotistical at this juncture. There is nothing that kills an effect so infallibly as a collision in conversation. “I have been telling lies,” said the gardener, “about you.” “I have been crying—about you.” (These women....) The gardener took a deep breath, recoiled for a start, and ran upon his subject. “I have told them that you are my wife, and that you are coming with me on the _Caribbeania_, sailing to-morrow morning for Trinity Islands.” “Told who ... _Caribbeania_ ... Trinity Islands ...” gathered the suffragette, with a woman’s instinct for tripping over the least essential point. And then she interviewed herself laboriously on the subject. There was ample motive for a militant protest, and that was a comfortable thought. She was justified in throwing any article of the drab furniture at the gardener’s sharp and doubtful face. This creature had put himself in authority over her without the authority to do so; he had decided to lead her to Trinity Islands, whereas her life’s work lay in England. This cold and curious boy had twisted off its hinges the destiny of an independent woman. She had hitherto closed the door of her heart against to-morrow. She had momentarily liked the idea of having a friend who loved the shape of her face, especially as he was leaving the country to-morrow. The unconventionality of the friendship had crowned as an ornament a life of dreadful refinement. She had meant to step for a moment from the lonely path, and now she found that her way back was barred—by this impenetrable trifle. It was infuriating. But the suffragette searched in vain for a trace of real fury in her heart. She tested the power of words. “It is infuriating,” she said. “Yes,” said the gardener, not apologetically. “I quite see that.” But she did not see it herself—except in theory.