Was this London, the London she had so hated, this wonder-town through which they sped together? Was this Aliette? This, Ronnie? And suddenly, vividly, she desired to hear his voice. Solitude no longer sufficed her. She had been so long solitary--solitary in unhappiness. Now, in her new happiness, she craved companionship, the sound of a voice, the touch of a hand. Why did he not dare speak with her? Descending as from great heights, her soul knew him afraid lest, speaking, he should destroy that rose-bubble of enchantment in which they had their being; afraid, too, because he still thought of her as another's. Yet she was no other's: she was his, his only. And he--hers. How fast they sped through this miracle of London. Already, the trees of its park were fleeting by. Oh, why wouldn't Ronnie speak with her? Had he no word to say? In a moment, in such a little moment, it would be too late. Yet it was fine of him not to speak, fine that he should so steel himself against her. His eyes were like sharp steel; his lips one tense line above the determination of his chin. He had clenched his hand--his right hand. Aliette could see it--close--so close to her own hand. Then the car swerved, almost throwing them together; and Ronnie's self-control snapped, as a violin-string snaps, to the touch of her. Their hands met. She knew that he was raising her hand to his lips; she felt the brush of his lips warm against her fingers; she heard his lips whisper: "Aliette--Aliette--don't hate me for loving you." 4 Hector Brunton's wife entered her husband's house like a girl in a dream. CHAPTER VII 1 When Aliette looks back on the three days that followed her lover's first avowal, she can only see herself moving in a strange, rapt exhilaration from room to room of Hector's great house in Lancaster Gate. Hector, she realized thankfully, would be away till Monday evening: the other inmates of the house--Mollie, Caroline Staley, Lennard the butler, and his female satellites--seemed as though they had been screen-folk, flat phantoms, alive only to the eye. Vaguely, among those phantoms, she can remember Jimmy Wilberforce, very correct in his evening-clothes, sitting between her and Mollie in the big cream-paneled dining-room. Dinner over--Aliette remembers--she invented some pretext to leave the pair unchaperoned, and withdrew to the balcony. It was good to be alone, alone with one's dreams--dreams that made even Bayswater Road beautiful. The road seemed a pathway of radiance. High silver edged it either side; between, the hasting car lights streamed their fans of luminous crystal. Here and there among the trees beyond, her eyes caught the orange flicker of matches, the red of kindled cigarettes. "Under those trees," she thought, "Ronnie whispered, 'Aliette, don't hate me for loving you.'" As though she could ever hate him!