At the door he turned and said, 'Since you thrust yourself into my room when I have shown you I don't desire your company you force me to leave it.' Then he added, his voice sounding queer and through his teeth, 'You'd better go and put your clothes on. I assure you I'm proof against sexual allurements.' Then he went out. Lucy stood looking at the door. Sexual allurements? What did he mean? Did he think--did he mean---- She flushed suddenly, and gripping her blanket tight about her she too marched to the door, her eyes bright and fixed. Considering the blanket, she walked upstairs with a good deal of dignity, and passed the bedroom door just as Lizzie, her arms full of a complete set of clothing, came out of it. 'Lumme!' once more exclaimed Lizzie, who seemed marked down for shocks; and dropped a hairbrush and a shoe. Disregarding her, Lucy proceeded up the next flight with the same dignity, and having reached Vera's room crossed to the fire, where she stood in silence while Lizzie, who had hurried after her and was reproaching her for having gone downstairs like that, dressed her and brushed her hair. She was quite silent. She didn't move. She was miles away from Lizzie, absorbed in quite a new set of astonished, painful thoughts. But at the end, when Lizzie asked her if there was anything more she could do, she looked at her a minute and then, having realised her, put out her hand and laid it on her arm. 'Thank you _very_ much for everything,' she said earnestly. 'I'm terribly sorry about that window, mum,' said Lizzie, who was sure she had been the cause of trouble. 'I don't know what come over me to forget it.' Lucy smiled faintly at her. 'Never mind,' she said; and she thought that if it hadn't been for that window she and Everard--well, it was no use thinking like that; perhaps there would have been something else. Lizzie went. She was a recent acquisition, and was the only one of the servants who hadn't known the late Mrs. Wemyss, but she told herself that anyhow she preferred this one. She went; and Lucy stood where she had left her, staring at the floor, dropping back into her quite new set of astonished, painful thoughts.