Guy Tyrrell, who was of the breed who scarcely ever receive a spontaneous kindly look from women, without offering something very substantial in exchange, was feeling that romantic passion for the voluptuous Jewess, which the sun and the plentiful food at Brineweald, had no doubt done an immense deal to fan to a flame in his breast. He had recognised very early that with Malster about, he stood no chance with Leonetta, and he found that had it not been for Leonetta's occupying the central place, he would have stood just as bad a chance with Vanessa. For two days now, moreover, he had been observing Vanessa lavishing her attentions on Sir Joseph, and utterly harmless though the old baronet was, Guy had been conscious of certain intolerable pangs when he had seen the girl's shapely little brown hands in the City magnate's, and her strong nicely rounded forearm enlocked in his master's. Tremulously, therefore, but with studious persistency, he had that evening repeatedly whispered the request to her that she should walk out to the woods with him, and she, casting a longing glance first at Lord Henry, then at Denis Malster, had reluctantly acquiesced. Her curiosity was possibly awakened too; at all events she went, when she had no pressing need to go, and incidentally received the entertainment she deserved. He was agitated, as all "clean-minded" young men are, whose amorous passions have for once got the better of their qualms, and he breathed very heavily,--rather like a draft-ox at the turn of the plough. He was gauche, timid, thoroughly unskilled in the art of wooing, not even up to the wiles of the most guileless male animal or bird; and Vanessa felt only a sensation of extreme discomfiture as he blurted out his longings to her. "No, really not!" she exclaimed. "I'm sorry, but I had no idea you felt like that about me." He caught her arms. His hand was very hot, and she felt it through the gauze of her sleeve. She turned back quickly. "Come on," she said, "let's get back to the house. They'll wonder what on earth we're doing." He dropped his hand to hers, and pulled on it slightly. "Listen," he pleaded. "Stop a minute and listen." She screwed her hand deftly out of his, and drew aside. "Oh, please leave me alone, Guy!" she cried. "It's no good. I couldn't dream of it. I'm never going to marry." Still he persisted incoherently, unattractively, and with the increasing daring of swelling desire. "No, I tell you," she ejaculated, laughing a little nervously. "Can't you take 'no' for an answer? You are not going to annoy me just because we happen to be alone, are you?" He dropped his hands to his side, and was silent.