He waited for her to defend herself; but she stood as though petrified, cold, with a furnace of emotions flaming inside her. He took her by the arm, roughly, and shook her. ‘Don’t dad!’ she whispered. ‘Here, tell me how far it’s gone.’ She wouldn’t answer him. ‘You’d better make a clean breast of it. How long has it been going on? There’s nothing wrong with you, eh? Better tell me straight!’ The implication affronted her modesty, for though she had fearfully imagined physical passion and its admonitions had found their way into her dreams, the least suggestion of crudity shocked her. Her father’s words made her want to cover her face for shame. Her resolution wavered. In a piercing moment of revelation she saw the scene in which she was taking a part: the hard, tasteless room, with its steel engravings of sporting pictures and its horsehair-covered furniture, the coarse cutlery that she had been putting on the table, the metallic ticking bronze clock on the mantelpiece, the worn hearthrug, and, in front of her, the angry, flushed face of her father, the face of a man inflamed by passion and the prejudices of his class. And she saw herself, a farmer’s daughter in a print overall, discovered, shamed, in a gross affair with a labouring man. How many times in the history of the countryside had the same scene been enacted? How many women of her kind had been pestered with the same urgent questions? And still he pressed her. ‘What’s done can’t be mended. Better tell me straight, my girl!’ All her suppressed idealism rose in revolt against him, against her surroundings, against her whole manner of life. She hated her father and utterly despised him. ‘I won’t have you talking to me like that,’ she said. ‘I’m not a child, and you shan’t treat me like one. I’m a woman. I’m nearly thirty. Do you think a woman can go on living this miserable, separated life and settle down into an old maid like Aunt Isabel without feeling anything? No . . . people like you don’t think that a woman should have any feelings. You think as long as you’re well fed and get your glass of whisky at night and all your books kept up to date, you think that’s enough life for a woman, you think that it’s a privilege for her to spend her days looking after you. Do you think a woman never wants a man?’ Prosser gasped. ‘I think you’ve taken leave of your senses, Marion,’ he said. ‘I’ve a life to live as well as you!’ she cried. ‘You call yourself a farmer, but you’ve no more idea of nature . . .’ She could say no more, but threw her hands wide in a gesture of despair. It slowly dawned on him that she was defending herself. He saw himself shamed among his fellows. There had never been a scandal at The Dyke in his time. He said: ‘Good God! Good God!’ then helped himself to another glass of whisky and took a stiff gulp. ‘Well, I never thought it of you,’ was all he could say. He poured out another tot.