"And why should we not be? We shall be! We--we are. Go home. Good-night." She waited for Rupert, dreading his quick eyes. "Notya seems better," he said easily. "Well, did you finish the cigarette?" "I didn't like it." "And it looked wrong. A piece of fine sewing suits you better." She smiled. "Does it? Have you had supper?" "Lily fed me. I like that girl. The only people I ever want to marry are the ones that some one else has chosen. It's contrariness, I suppose." He looked round. "Two arm-chairs? Do you always sit here?" "Yes. Notya can't hear us." "I see." "And you want to see the rest?" "I do." "I shall show you nothing." "I'd rather find it out." "Tomorrow," she said, "you will see Daniel and Zebedee. I know you'll be curious about him. I don't mind, but don't let him notice it, please, Rupert." He marked her little tremor. "Trust me. I'm wasted on the bank." "You and Daniel will have a fine talk, I suppose. The walls of that house are very thin. Be careful." "Yes, my dear. I can't help wishing I had not left home." She stood up. "I don't wish anything undone. If you begin undoing, you find yourself in a worse tangle." "You're not unhappy?" "Do I look it?" "You always answer one question with another. You didn't look it. You do now." She sighed. "I almost wish you hadn't come, Rupert. You made beauty seem so near." CHAPTER XXXV She had another reason for her wish. She knew that Rupert had but delayed what was inevitable, and when it came one night, a few weeks later, she had no feeling beyond relief that the fight was over, that she need no longer scheme to outwit George with her advances and retreats. Afterwards, she suffered from a black anger that she must serve the man she did not love, a dull despair from the knowledge that, while both lived, the tie would hold. Her mind tried, and failed, to make nothing of it; by nature she was bound to him who took most from her, and when George had played the husband, he left her destitute. That Zebedee would always have the best of her had been her boast, but for a time, there was nothing he could have. She was George Halkett's woman. The day was fogged with memories of the night, yet through that fog she looked for his return. She was glad when she heard his step outside and, going to the kitchen door, felt herself lifted off her feet. She did not try to analyze the strange mingling of willingness and shrinking that made up her feeling for him, but she found mental safety in abandoning herself to what must be, a primitive pleasure in the fact of being possessed, a shameful happiness in submission.