Julia reluctantly enough, but feeling that she owed him what explanation was possible, went through. Behind the bushes there was a small enclosed space used for growing choice bulbs; it was empty now, the sandy soil quite bare and dry; but it was very retired, being surrounded by an eight foot hedge with only one opening besides the way by which they had come in through the looser-growing bushes. Julia made her way down to the opening; with her practical eye for such things, she recognised that it would be the best way of escape, just as the loose-growing bushes offered the likeliest point of attack. This, of course, did not matter to her, she being in the case of "he who is down," but it might matter a good deal to Joost if his father looked through the bushes, and he would never know how to take care of himself. "Well?" she said, when she had taken up this discreet position. But as he did not seem ready she went on, "I really don't think there is anything to say; I did wrong yesterday, not quite as much wrong as your mother and Denah think, still wrong--what my own people would have disapproved, at least if it were found out; that's the biggest crime on their list--and what I knew your people would condemn utterly. I am afraid I have no excuse to offer; I knew what I was doing, and I did it with my eyes open. I did not see any harm in it myself but I knew other people would, so I meant to say nothing. I had deceived your parents before, and I meant to keep on doing it. You know I had walked with that man lots of times before yesterday; all the time your mother thought me so good to visit your cousin I really enjoyed doing it because I walked with him." "Do you love him?" The question was asked low and almost jerkily. "Love him?" Julia said in surprise; "no, of course not. That is where the difference comes in, I believe; you all seem to think there is nothing but love and love-making and kissing and cuddling. I have just liked talking to him and I suppose he liked talking to me, as you might some friend, or Denah some girl she knew. We never thought about love and all that; we couldn't, you know; he belongs to a different lot from what I do. Do you understand?" "Yes, I understand," he answered, and there was a vibrant note in his voice which was new to her. "I understand that it is you who are right and we who are wrong--you who know good and evil and can choose, we who suspect and think and hint, believing ill when there is none. Rather than send you away, we should ask your forgiveness!" "You should do nothing of the kind," Julia said decidedly, beginning to take alarm. "I may not have been wrong in quite the way your parents think, but I was wrong all the same. I am not good, believe me; I am not as you are. Look at me, I am bad inwardly, and really I am what you would condemn and despise."