He let her in. He was annoyed at the backwardness of his senses. His mind stepped in, determined to do their business for them. He put his arm round her waist, and planting his lips fully on hers, began kissing her. He slipped his hands sideways beneath her coat, and pressed an athletic, sinuous hulk against him. The various bulging and retreating contact of her body brought monotonous German reminders. It was the first time he had kissed her. She showed no bashfulness or disinclination, but no return. Was she in the unfortunate position of an unawakened mass; and had she so rationalized her intimate possessions that there was no precocious fancy left until mature animal ardour was set up? He felt as though he were embracing a tiger, who was not unsympathetic, but rather surprised. Perhaps he had been too sudden. He ran his hand upwards along her body. All was statuesquely genuine. She took his hand away. “We haven’t come to that yet,” she said. “Haven’t we!” “I didn’t think we had.” Smiling at each other, they separated. “Let me take your coat off. You’ll be hot in here.” Her coat was all in florid redundancies of heavy cloth, like a Tintoretto dress. Underneath she was wearing a very plain dark blouse and skirt, like a working girl, which exaggerated the breadth and straightness of her shoulders. Not to sentimentalize it, she had open-work stockings on underneath, such as the genuine girl would have worn on her night out, at one and eleven-three the pair. “You look very well,” Tarr said. “I put these on for you.” Tarr had, while he was kissing her, found his senses again. They had flared up in such a way that the reason had been offended, and resisted. Hence some little conflict. _They_ were not going to have the credit⸺! He became shy. He was ashamed of his sudden interest, which had been so long in coming, and instinctively hid it. He was committed to the rôle of a reasonable man. “I am very flattered at your thinking of me in that way. I am afraid I do not deserve⸺” “I want you to _deserve_, though. You are absurd about women. You are like a schoolboy!” “Oh, you’ve noticed that?” “It doesn’t require much⸺” She lay staring at him in a serious way. Squashed up as she was lying, a very respectable bulk of hip filled the space between the two arms of the chair, not enough to completely satisfy a Dago, but too’ much to please a dandy of the west. He compared this opulence with Bertha’s and admitted that it outdid his fiancée’s. He did this childish measuring in the belief that he was not observed. “You are extremely recalcitrant to intelligence, aren’t you?” she said. “In women, you mean?” “Yes.” “I suppose I am. My tastes are simple.” “I don’t know anything about your tastes, of course. I’m guessing.” “You can take it that you are right.”