He was shy with the shyness of a big, good-natured creature who was slow to adapt himself to strange surroundings. A feminine atmosphere had always rendered John Parfit nervous and inarticulate. He could talk like a politician in an office or a railway carriage, but thrust him into a drawing-room with a few women, and he became voiceless and futile. “Well, how are we?” He put his top-hat on the table, and stood the flowers in it as though it were a vase. “But your poor hat!” “Why, what’s the matter?” “They are such sappy things. I must thank you for all the flowers. They helped me to get well.” He removed the daffodils, and wandered round the room till he found an empty pot that agreed to rid him of them. “Don’t you bother—don’t you get up! I’ll settle them all right.” He came back to the fire, rubbing his hands and smiling. The smile died a sudden death when he dared to take his first good look at Eve, and with it much of his self-consciousness seemed to vanish. He sat down rather abruptly, staring. “I say, you have had a bad time!” “I’m afraid I have.” She looked thin, and ill, and shadowy, and plain, and her eyes were the eyes of one who was worried. A tremulous something about her mouth, the droop of her neck, the light on her hair, stirred in John Parfit an inarticulate compassion. The man in him was challenged, appealed to, touched. “I say, you’ve been bad, you know!” “But I’m getting better.” “You’re—you’re so white and thin!” He spoke in an awed voice, his glance fixed on one of her hands that rested on the arm of her chair. “I wanted to have a talk, you know. But I shall tire you.” “No.” She heard him draw a big breath. “Look here, I’m a fool at expressing myself, but you’ve been having a bad time. I mean, as to the money. Beastly thing money. I’ve guessed that. Seems impertinent of me, but, by George! well, I can’t help it. It’s upset me, seeing you like this. It’s made me start saying something I didn’t mean to mention.” He was out of breath, and sat watching her for one dumb, inarticulate moment, his hands clenched between his knees. “Look here, you may think me a fool, but I tell you one thing, I can’t stand the thought of a girl like you having to scrape and scramble. I can’t stand it. And I shouldn’t have had the cheek, but for feeling like this. I’ll just blurt it out. I’ve been thinking of it for weeks. Look here, let me take care of you—for life, I mean. I’m not a bad sort, and I don’t think I shall be a selfish beast of a husband. There’s nothing I won’t do to make you happy.” He sat on the edge of the chair, his hands still clenched between his knees. As for Eve, she was distressed, touched, and perhaps humbled. She told herself suddenly that she had not faced this man fairly, that she had not foreseen what she ought to have foreseen. The room felt close and hot.