Cynthia rose with a quick movement to her feet. She stood before him, her broad forehead troubled, her lips mutinous, and by her attitude she made all the more plain his need of her. The room was Rames's own study which had been lined with mahogany, and against the bright dark panelling, in her white dress, she gleamed slim and fair and beautiful as silver. Harry Rames looked her over with a smile. She was, as he put it to himself, exquisitely turned out. She had the grace and delicacy natural to a family nursed in good manners through a century, and with all her beauty she had simplicity and a desire to please. "Yes, I want you, Cynthia," he said, and the blood rushed hot to her face and throat. She turned from him swiftly and went out of the open window onto a balcony which overhung their tiny square of garden. Rames's eyes followed her curiously. Something had gone wrong; that was clear. He could see her leaning over the rail in the darkness, her face between her hands. Rames's survey of her had brought back to her recollection that distant morning by the wheat-field in South America when her father had looked her over horribly from head to foot and had valued her for a market. There had been just a touch of appraisement in her husband's look now. Almost she traced a resemblance in the two men's thoughts, the two men's examinations. Harry left her to herself for a few minutes. Then he followed her: "I think I understand, Cynthia," he said gently. "Of course it isn't a very high and lofty business we're engaged on. That's right enough. And when you consider the sort of people our party's going to be composed of--the dissatisfied, the ambitious, the timid, and just a few who believe Fanshawe's bill a bad thing--the man[oe]uvre doesn't look very pretty. So if you don't want to go, don't." But Cynthia had changed her mind. "No. I'll come, Harry," she said. "It's too late to be half-hearted now. I'll certainly come." She turned back into the room, and picking up her gloves from a table went upstairs. Harry Rames had no doubt that he had hit upon the reason of her disinclination to go to Bramling. But as Cynthia ran up the stairs she kept saying to herself nervously like one who would frighten fear away with words: "Perhaps no one will notice it. Very likely no one will notice it. And if they do, they will think it an accident."