For some reason or other she glanced round. Her startled eyes met his. She, too, had beautiful dark blue eyes. She stood, with the sponge at her neck, looking full at him. Siegmund felt himself shrinking. The child’s look was steady, calm, inscrutable. “Hello!” said her father. “Are you here!” The child, without altering her expression in the slightest, turned her back on him, and continued wiping her neck. She dropped the sponge in the water and took the towel from off the side of the bath. Then she turned to look again at Siegmund, who stood in his pyjamas before her, his mouth shut hard, but his eyes shrinking and tender. She seemed to be trying to discover something in him. “Have you washed your ears?” he said gaily. She paid no heed to this, except that he noticed her face now wore a slight constrained smile as she looked at him. She was shy. Still she continued to regard him curiously. “There is some chocolate on my dressing-table,” he said. “Where have you been to?” she asked suddenly. “To the seaside,” he answered, smiling. “To Brighton?” she asked. Her tone was still condemning. “Much farther than that,” he replied. “To Worthing?” she asked. “Farther—in a steamer,” he replied. “But who did you go with?” asked the child. “Why, I went all by myself,” he answered. “Twuly?” she asked. “Weally and twuly,” he answered, laughing. “Couldn’t you take me?” she asked. “I will next time,” he replied. The child still looked at him, unsatisfied. “But what did you go for?” she asked, goading him suspiciously. “To see the sea and the ships and the fighting ships with cannons—” “You _might_ have taken me,” said the child reproachfully. “Yes, I ought to have done, oughtn’t I?” he said, as if regretful. Gwen still looked full at him. “You _are_ red,” she said. He glanced quickly in the glass, and replied: “That is the sun. Hasn’t it been hot?” “Mm! It made my nose all peel. Vera said she would scrape me like a new potato.” The child laughed and turned shyly away. “Come here,” said Siegmund. “I believe you’ve got a tooth out, haven’t you?” He was very cautious and gentle. The child drew back. He hesitated, and she drew away from him, unwilling. “Come and let me look,” he repeated. She drew farther away, and the same constrained smile appeared on her face, shy, suspicious, condemning. “Aren’t you going to get your chocolate?” he asked, as the child hesitated in the doorway. She glanced into his room, and answered: “I’ve got to go to mam and have my hair done.” Her awkwardness and her lack of compliance insulted him. She went downstairs without going into his room. Siegmund, rebuffed by the only one in the house from whom he might have expected friendship, proceeded slowly to shave, feeling sick at heart. He was a long time over his toilet. When he stripped himself for the bath, it seemed to him he could smell the sea. He bent his head and licked his shoulder. It tasted decidedly salt. “A pity to wash it off,” he said.