He walked to meet her with quick steps and took both her hands in his; his hungry eyes searched her face eagerly. “You look lovely to-night, Edith,” he said, in a voice scarcely above a whisper. She released her hands gently with the ghost of a smile that subtly atoned for her action. “Did you enjoy your Derby Day?” she asked. “It was enormously interesting,” he said; “it is extraordinary that I have never been before.” “You could not have chosen a worse day. Did you get caught in the storm? We have had a terrible one here.” She spoke quickly, with a little note of query at the end of each sentence. She gave you the impression that she desired to stand well with her lover, that she was in some awe of him. She was like a child, anxious to acquit herself well of a lesson; and now and then she conveyed a sense of relief, as one who had surmounted yet another obstacle. Gilbert was always conscious of the strain which marked their relationship. A dozen times a day he told himself that it was incredible that such a strain should exist. But he found a ready excuse for her diffidence and the furtive fear which came and went in her eyes like shadows over the sea. She was young, much younger than her years. This beautiful bud had not opened yet, and his engagement had been cursed by over-much formality. He had met her conventionally at a ball. He had been introduced by her mother, again conventionally, he had danced with her and sat out with her, punted her on the river, motored her and her mother to Ascot. It was all very ordinary and commonplace. It lacked something. Gilbert never had any doubt as to that. He took the blame upon himself for all deficiencies, though he was something of a romancist, despite the chilly formalism of the engagement. She had kept him in his place with the rest of the world, one arm’s length, with those beseeching eyes of hers. He was at arm’s length when he proposed, in a speech the fluency of which was eloquent of the absence of anything which touched emotionalism. And she had accepted in a murmured word, and turned a cold cheek for his kiss, and then had fluttered out of his arms like an imprisoned bird seeking its liberty, and had escaped from that conventional conservatory with its horrible palms and its spurious Tanagra statuettes. Gilbert in love was something of a boy; an idealist, a dreamer. Other grown men have shared his weakness, there are unsuspected wells of romance in the most practical of men. So he was content with his dreams, weaving this and that story of sweet surrender in his inmost heart. He loved her, completely, absorbingly. To him she was a divine and a fragrant thing. He had taken her hand again in his, and realised with pain, which was tinctured with amusement that made it bearable, that she was seeking to disengage herself, when Mrs. Cathcart came into the room.