He left her gasping. She hated him in that moment. Never, never, would she forgive him. All the same she followed him. He was almost as aghast at his conduct as she, and it was a relief to him to see her enter the kitchen before he had time to explain his entry to Annette. He stood and smiled weakly--a little vacantly--and, with a forced joviality, he said: "We--we've come to help you with the supper." Gertrude took his arm and said, "Yes, she had come to show Annette how to make a real Indian curry as Uncle William had it done, according to a native recipe, at Sydenham." Annette explained that she was not making a curry, and had not the ingredients for it, but she said how glad she would be of their help, as she was rather late. Bennett and Gertrude selected activities which were necessarily separate. Bennett chose to help at the oven. Gertrude took the heaped-up tray into the dining-room. Bennett was filled with an extraordinary elation as he saw her go. He had asserted himself more forcibly than he had intended, and, so far as he could see, with a success beyond all anticipation. It went to his head, he brandished a piece of bread on the end of a toasting-fork and chanted to himself: "I shall be twenty next March, twenty-one next year, twenty-two the year after--twenty-nine in . . . But there. How old are you Annette?" "Nineteen." "Have you been confirmed?" "Of course. Ages ago. At school." "I wasn't confirmed until I was sixteen. It made a great change in my life." "You must be very glad to have Gertrude back again." "I am." He let the toasting-fork drop against the grate. Annette rushed at him: "You mustn't burn it. It's for pa's toast-and-water. It must never be burned." The tricksy spirit which is ever lying in wait for the moment when a man is swollen with vanity pounced on Bennett, and out of buffoonery and high spirits he dodged Annette and held the toasting-fork out of her reach. She clutched at it; he dodged again. In her eagerness she tripped and lunged against him. His arm went round her shoulder and he caught her arm. . . . They stood like that for a second and then he found that he could not let her go. His hand gripped tight and hurt her, but she too had passed from laughing excitement to another strange and melting emotion. . . . She could see the door; he could not. She saw Gertrude, and wrenched away. He followed her, and in a curious strangled voice that he hardly knew for his own he cried: "Annette . . . I . . ." But Annette had rushed out of the kitchen and he was alone with Gertrude. He picked up the toasting-fork and held the bread before the glowing coals. "What are you doing?" asked Gertrude. "Making toast for your father's toast-and-water." "So I see. And what was Annette doing?" "Annette was showing me how to make it." Gertrude drew herself up heroically, and with what she took for dramatic intensity she said: "Bennett, do you love me?" "No," said he, startled into truth.