Vera thought that she had been rather clever. Nicky would dash in and do the thing badly. He would be very proud about it, and he would revolt from his dependence on Desmond, and he would show her--Vera hoped that he would show her--that he did not want to be under any obligation to her. And Desmond would be hurt and lose her temper. The hard look would get into her face and destroy its beauty, and she would say detestable things in a detestable voice, and a dreadful ugliness would come between them, and the impulse of Nicky's yet unborn passion would be checked, and the memory of that abominable half-hour would divide them for ever. * * * * * But Vera herself had grown hard and clever. She had forgotten Nicky's tenderness, and she knew nothing at all about Desmond's fright. And, as it happened, neither Nicky nor Desmond did any of the things she thought they would do. Nicky was not impetuous. He found Desmond in her studio working on the last drawing of the Moving Fortress, with the finished model before her. That gave him his opening, and he approached shyly and tentatively. Desmond put on an air of complete absorption in her drawing; but she smiled. A pretty smile that lifted the corners of her mouth and made it quiver, and gave Nicky a queer and unexpected desire to kiss her. He went on wanting to know what his debt was--not that he could ever really pay it. "Oh, you foolish Nicky," Desmond said. He repeated himself over and over again, and each time she had an answer, and the answers had a cumulative effect. "There isn't any debt. You don't pay anything--" "I didn't do it for _that_, you silly boy." "What did I do it for? I did it for fun. You couldn't draw a thing like that for anything else. Look at it--" --"Well, if you want to be horrid and calculating about it, think of the lunches and the dinners and the theatre tickets and the flowers you've given _me_. Oh, and the gallons and gallons of petrol. How am I ever to pay you back again?" Thus she mocked him. "Can't you see how you're spoiling it all?" And then, passionately: "Oh, Nicky, please don't say it again. It hurts." She turned on him her big black looking-glass eyes washed bright, each with one tear that knew better than to fall just yet. He must see that she was holding herself well in hand. It would be no use letting herself go until he had forgotten his Moving Fortress. He was looking at the beastly thing now, instead of looking at her. "Are you thinking of another old engine?" "No," said Nicky. "I'm not thinking of anything." "Then you don't want me to do any more drawings?" "No." "Well then--I wonder whether you'd very much mind going away?" "Now?" "No. Not now. But soon. From here. Altogether." "Go? Altogether? Me? Why?" He was utterly astonished. He thought that he had offended Desmond past all forgiveness. "Because I came here to be alone. To work. And I can't work. And I want to be alone again."