This now, with Hetty, was in its way happiness, though he detested it and her. It was an escape. It was easy. It made no demands on him, save the small effort to achieve self-forgetfulness, and in that she aided him, for she seemed superior to himself and enviable in the clearness of her purpose. She offered herself and made no demands upon him except of what could cost him nothing: just a few words to his friends, a start in her chosen profession. All the same, he was horrified at himself. Every other crisis and sudden change in his life had been attended with violent suffering, an eruption within himself, profound depression, almost a collapse. This had been as easy as walking through a door, a slipping from one part of his being to another. . . . Here suddenly was happiness, a queer detached, almost indifferent condition, full of pleasure, and he rejoiced in the novelty of it. He watched Hetty draw on her clothes again and was sickened by the sensual languor of her movements. She was drowsy, like a cat before a fire. "No, I certainly shan't draw you to-day." "What about to-morrow?" "I shall be painting to-morrow." "I do think you're a devil sometimes." "I'll take you to the Paris Café, if you like." "Will you?" She perked up on that. She had not expected so soon to gain her desire. "Yes. If you've got to earn your living you should meet people, and the sooner you get going the better." Hetty sat with her chin in her hands, crouched in elation. Everything had turned out as she had hoped and planned, as she had willed that it should, and she regarded him with some contempt because he had been so easy and because he was so young. She was the same age as he, but she thought him a little vain boy. Yet when he looked at her she was afraid of him, for he knew so much and guessed so much more. To defend herself, her instinct drove through to his vanity and flattered it to blind him. She feigned an animation she was incapable of feeling to make herself more beautiful in his eyes, and he thought of his friends, Mitchell and Weldon, and how they would be stirred with her. He thought how she would please Calthrop, and he was lured into believing that he would gain in importance through her. "You've come at a very bad time," he said. "They'll all be going away for the summer." "Oh!" she looked dashed, hating to be caught out in a mistake. "Do they go away for long?" "Three months." "Oh, well!" she drawled. "I can get a place if nothing turns up. But something always does turn up. I'm one of the lucky ones, you know." "I don't believe in luck," said he, with a sudden irruption of the old self that seemed to have been left so far behind. "I must go now," she said.