There were moments, however, when they were alone together, and then he pulled her to him and kissed her roughly all over her face and neck, pushing her abruptly away at the first possibility of interruption. Once or twice, at the imminent risk of being discovered, he had snatched hasty and provocative kisses from her lips in a chance encounter on the stairs, or even behind the shelter of an open door. The perpetual fear of detection, no less than the tantalising incompleteness of their relations, was a strain upon Elsie’s nerves, and she was keyed up to a pitch of unusual sensitiveness when the inevitable crisis came. Mrs. Woolley, in a new blue dress that looked too tight under the arms, had taken the children to a party. The maid Florrie was out for the afternoon. Elsie, restless and on edge, terribly wanted an excuse to go down to the surgery. At last she found one, and after listening at the door to make certain that no belated patient was with the doctor, she knocked. “Come in!” He was sitting at the writing-table, rapidly turning over the leaves of a big book. “Elsie!” “Oh, if you please, Doctor,” she minced, “they’ve all gone out, and Mrs. Woolley left a message to say if you _could_ go and fetch her and the children from 85, Lower Park Avenue, about seven o’clock----” “Stow it, Elsie! D’you mean to say you and I are the only people left in the place? Where’s that damned slut in the kitchen, eh?” “It’s Florrie’s afternoon out, Doctor, but----” “Florrie be damned! Look here, Elsie, this sort of thing can’t go on.” She backed until she stood against the wall, feeling the warm blood surge into her face and looking at him through half-closed eyelids. “What sort of thing?” “You know very well what I mean. Look at me. D’you think I’m a man?” He thrust out his chest and doubled up his arms, standing with his legs wide apart. In spite of his grossness and unwholesome fat, Elsie thrilled to the suggestion of his masculine strength. “Yes,” she murmured. “Well, I tell you no man’s going to stand what you’re making me stand. Elsie, you little devil! Don’t you know you’re driving me mad? God, if I could tell you the sort of dreams I get at night, now!” “About me?” she asked curiously. “Shut up!” His voice was savage, and she suddenly saw sweat glistening on his upper lip and round his nose. Elsie decided to begin to cry. “It frightens me when you shout at me like that. Perhaps I’d better go,” she said sobbingly. “No, no, no! I say, what a brute I am! Come here and be comforted, little girl.” He sat down heavily in the revolving chair before the writing-table and held out his hand. Elsie advanced slowly, without looking at him, until she came within reach of his arm. Then he caught hold of her and drew her on to his knee, gripping her tightly until her weight sank against his shoulder. “Let me kiss all the tears away. What a hound I am to make you cry! Was’ums very mis’mis?”