"Over supper I began at last to lose my shyness, for I had been very nervous, you know. As one only too rarely is.... She had the quality of making one talk, of making one feel that one was on the top of one's form. Oh, that insinuating art of unuttered flattery which makes one weak and sincere and terribly reckless. "'You are very terrible, you make me almost articulate,' I simply had to say, as we rose from the table. 'You see the only really nice things about me are my admirations, and I admire you so unreservedly....' "Perhaps it was just at that moment that I first kissed her. Yes, it must have been then, for she had a way of accepting those shameless remarks with such an air of pretty surprise that I couldn't have resisted the impulse--and anyway, I didn't want to, the thing could go its own divine way without any more officious restraint on my part. "I found then that she had that rarest of generous gifts, the power of graceful admission.... You, old man, who have loved beautiful things, must know how rare that is, how often one is jarred by that meanest sort of pride which denies, refuses to admit, the influence of another. Oh, the insaneness of generous people, the indecencies of decent people! Am I phrasing a sensation too absurdly if I say that I was _comfortable_ with this woman whom I had known for less than two hours? And when I had kissed her, and kissed her again, for hers was not the riddle to be solved by one touch of the lips, the thing did not take on the air of a _liaison_, it was not a surprising and stolen pleasure, it was just natural. "Slowly she unpinned her orchid and threw it among the elegant debris of the table. "'You crush orchids,' she said. She didn't smile. She looked up at me very thoughtfully. "'But you must know that this is all wrong,' she said. 'It should not have been like this at all. When I decided this morning that you must come to supper with me it was on the distinct understanding that you should not touch more than the tips of my fingers--and they were manicured so well this afternoon, too! Look.... Oh, no no! It is too late, now that you have crushed my orchid it is too late to be so deferential. And anyway, I did not intend that you should kiss even my hand until you were going away--and I imagined you going away very disappointed and full of quite pleasant regrets that I was a cold woman in spite, oh, in spite of everything! Come, Noël Anson, defend yourself. Give me reasons why you should not be disappointed. I am very serious.' And I realised that she was indeed serious. "'But why d'you say that?' I asked quickly. 'Must the thing be exactly as you planned, can't anything be altered--oh, I know that sounds fatuous, but when you look like that one feels helpless! I was right. You are very terrible.'