She struggled to free herself from the kiss he had forced upon her. In her physical revolt against him the lips pressed to hers felt like the dry hot hide of some animal. “Let me go! Let me go!” she choked. “Och, why are you doing this and spoiling everything?” In escaping from his arms Nancy had gone right into her room. Kenrick followed her in and, shutting the door behind him, began to plead with her. “Let me come and sit in here for a while. I won’t try to kiss you again. Let’s pull up a couple of chairs to the fire and talk.” “Och, do go away,” Nancy begged. “There’s nothing to talk about now, and it’s late, and I feel so unhappy about this.” All the time she was talking she was searching everywhere for the matches to light the lamp and illuminate with its common sense this mad situation created by moonshine and shadows and flickering logs. “You’ve surely realised that I’ve been madly in love with you ever since I saw you at Bristol?” he demanded. Nancy found the matches and lit the lamp. Then she turned to face Kenrick. “Of course I didn’t realise it. Do you suppose I would have let you pay for my singing-lessons and all this, if I’d thought you were in love with me? I see it now, and I could kill myself for being so dense. And me supposing it was all on account of my fine voice! Och, it’s too humiliating. Just an arrangement between you and Gambone, and me to be so mad as to believe in you.” “Now don’t be too unjust, Nancy,” he said. “You have a fine voice, and even if you turn me down as a lover I’m still willing to see you through with your training.” “I thought you knew so much about women,” she stabbed. “You don’t really suppose that I’d accept another penny from you now?” “Why not?” “Why not? Well, I won’t ever be your mistress, and since it was the hope of getting me for your mistress that made you send me out here—you can’t deny that, now, can you?—well, since it was that and I can’t oblige, you don’t suppose I’ll accept your charity?” “But I tell you I do think you have a fine voice, and so does Gambone. I swear to you he does. This hasn’t been a trick to get you out to Italy, and nothing else; though it would be absurd to pretend that I’d have done what I did for you for any woman with a fine voice.” “Why couldn’t you have told me there was a price attached? It wasn’t fair of you to let me come out here without knowing that.” Nancy was on the verge of breaking down; but she knew that if she cried Kenrick would take the opportunity of such weakness to attempt a reconciliation, and she was determined to finish with him for ever to-night. “I suppose it wasn’t,” he admitted. “But you must remember that I didn’t know you then as I know you now, and perhaps I assumed that you were like most women, for I swear most women would have realised that I was in love.”