She felt his mouth pushed out to her mouth as it retreated, trying to cover it, to press down. She gave a cry: "Oh--oh, you--" and struggled, beating him off with one hand while the other fumbled madly for her pocket-handkerchief. His grip slackened. He rose to his feet. But he still stooped over her, penning her in with his outstretched arms, his weight propped by his hands laid on the back of the sofa. "You--old--imbecile--" she spurted. She could afford it. In one rapid flash of intelligence she had seen that, whatever happened, she could never get that five hundred pounds _down_. And to surrender to old Waddy without it, to surrender to old Waddy at all, when she could marry Freddy Markham, would be too preposterous. Even if there hadn't been any Freddy Markham, it would have been preposterous. At that moment as she said it, while he still held her prisoned and they stared into each other's faces, she spurting and he panting, Barbara came in. He started; jerked himself upright. Mrs. Levitt recovered herself. "You silly cuckoo," she said. "You don't know how ridiculous you look." She had found her pocket-handkerchief and was dabbing her eyes and mouth with it, rubbing off the uncleanness of his impact. "How ridic--Te-hee--Te-hee--te-hee!" She shook with laughter. Barbara pretended not to see them. To have gone back at once, closing the door on them, would have been to admit that she had seen them. Instead she moved, quickly yet abstractedly, to the writing-table, took up the photographs and went out again. Mr. Waddington had turned away and stood leaning against the chimneypiece, hiding his head ("Poor old ostrich!") in his hands. His attitude expressed a dignified sorrow and a wronged integrity. Barbara stood for a collected instant at the door and spoke: "I'm sorry I forgot the photographs." As if she said: "Cheer up, old thing. I didn't really see you." Through the closed door she heard Mrs. Levitt's laughter let loose, malignant, shrill, hysterical, a horrid sound. "I'm sorry, Elise. But I thought you cared for me." "You'd no business to think. And it wasn't likely I'd tell you." "Oh, you didn't tell me, my dear. How could you? But you made me believe you wanted me." "Wanted? Do you suppose I wanted to be made ridiculous?" "Love isn't ridiculous," said Mr. Waddington. "It is. It's _the_ most ridiculous thing there is. And when _you_'re making it.... If you could have seen your face--Oh, dear!" "If you wouldn't laugh quite so loud. The servants will hear you." "I mean them to hear me." "Confound you, Elise!" "That's right, swear at me. Swear at me." "I'm sorry I swore. But, hang it all, it's every bit as bad for me as it is for you." "Worse, I fancy. You needn't think Miss Madden didn't see you, because she did." "It's a pity Miss Madden didn't come in a little sooner." "Sooner? I think she chose her moment very well."