“Well, I’ll not believe it,” said Polly stubbornly. She was walking up and down the room, her eyes puzzled and angry. “But I’ll sound out Gita this very day. And warn her off the grass if I find she’s been flirting with him. She’s come out of her ‘fort’ to such an amazing extent this winter and has got so accustomed to men raving over her that no doubt she’s as keen as the next girl to stir a man up——” “Do you believe that Gita is incapable of falling in love?” “Yes, I do. When I first met her I got the impression she was just the sort to burn herself up over some man, but I know better now. No one could call her sub-normal, but she’s what is known as asexual. Shell’s all right but emotional content gone fluey. Do you know that she doesn’t live with Eustace? That they had an understanding to that effect?” Mrs. Pleyden blushed slightly. “I inferred as much, but it cannot last.” “Not with anyone but Gita. Perhaps not forever even with her. Time works wonders even to one’s inside. But no one but Eustace will turn the trick. He’s the man for her in every way and she really adores him in her own queer fashion. She’ll never give ten cents for Geoffrey Pelham nor anyone else.” “I’m not so sure. She is Gerald Carteret’s daughter, and the living image of him. Nor were the Carteret women, although their virtue was proverbial, ever known as what you call asexual. The men were lawless, and Gita strikes me as more like them than like the women of her family. And although she started out in life by hating men you can see for yourself how she’s changed. Nothing she did would surprise me. You know how high-handed she is. What she wants she will have——” “No more high-handed than I am. You forget this is the age of high-handedness. What we want we’ll damn well get. And the devil take the hindmost. Well, I’m off to dress.” CHAPTER VI Gita was only half-dressed when she heard Polly’s voice downstairs. She had not slept until long after daylight. To her intense annoyance and perplexity her mind iterated and reiterated the scene between herself and Geoffrey Pelham. As a rule she fell asleep the moment she turned off the light, no matter how exciting the preceding hours may have been, and she looked upon Pelham almost with awe that he could disturb the habit of a lifetime. Even the ugly worries and agitations of the past had never interfered with sound healthy nights. The moment she was encompassed by darkness she had been back in the Pleyden dining-room with Geoffrey Pelham’s voice in her ears, her eyes on his white strained face until she dropped them in consternation. She supposed that another woman, recalling a declaration from a man as attractive as that would have thrilled at the haunting memory; but her body was quiescent, it was only her brain that blazed like a bonfire. . . . She was not even sure he had captured her imagination, he had merely “started something.” . . .