However, it had to be done, so she went in, catching sight as she passed through the hall of a roll of music returned by Laura: but it failed to stir any regret that she was always too tired to practise nowadays. Leisure--which she had all her life regarded as a right, no more to be considered than water or air--was hers no longer. But she had no idea that she was sharing the exact experience of thousands of women throughout England--throughout Europe: that as she stood there alone over a stove in a quiet little house in a remote part of Yorkshire, carrying out the everyday details of her narrow existence, she was more widely and actually international than the manual workers themselves. She only knew that she loathed the smell of frying fat. _Chapter XIV_ _The Cliff Top_ Caroline had just come back from her tea and stood at the door of the pay-box, talking to Lillie, who was about to go off duty. The bright light reflected from the sea shone on the two girls, and on some children with brown legs and streaming hair who raced along the promenade. "Going for a walk?" said Caroline, glancing idly in front of her at the expanse of dappled water. "No. Mother has a bad cold and we're full up with visitors. I shall go straight home." Then--just at this least expected moment--the thing happened for which some hidden feeling within her had been so intently waiting all day. She saw Godfrey standing there as she had pictured, with his broad, long-fingered hand on the iron bar; the hand so indicative--had she but known--of the contradictions in his character. Lillie sat down again to release the clutch, and he passed through to the promenade. "Oh, lovely afternoon, isn't it?" he said, and walked briskly away between the neat rows of bedding plants. The two girls looked after him; at last Lillie said with a slight giggle: "Seems in a hurry, doesn't he? But I expect he's got his young lady waiting for him. My word, she'd give him beans if she knew he saw you home last night, wouldn't she?" A pause, during which Caroline failed to respond; then, rather shortly: "Well, so long!" But Caroline did not notice; her whole mind bent on Godfrey's retreating figure as it went firmly down the broad concrete walk of the promenade--for now the question she'd been craving to ask all day had been answered. He thought nothing about what happened last night. The kiss had been nothing to him. He intended to show her that he did not recognize any slightest claim on his attention which she might think she had gained from it. Then she had to cease looking after him in order to answer a stout lady visitor who made a point of being nice to the girl at the pay-box. "Yes--a great pity the weather was not like this for the Gala." But all the time she was saying to herself, with the queer, dazed feeling which comes from a sudden shock of discovery: "I'm gone on him! I'm fair gone on him, and him going to be married!"