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‘And some friends of theirs, two or three friends, who have cottages near by. It’s on the cliffs near the Lizard; it’s lovely there in early spring they say.’

‘Are the friends artistic too?’ She felt as if she were creeping after a tiger in the jungle.

‘Yes, they are all artistic I think,’ said Clive, moving to the fireplace. ‘Write or paint or act, you know;—all very busy and modern.’

‘What form does their modernness take?’

‘What form does it take? Well, I don’t quite know. Talk in the main, I think; they are great talkers; very unshackled,’ and Clive tried to smile, looking over at her, but his smile was no longer clear. He knew now that he had something to hide and that she was trying to find it, and, while bitterness surged in her against the dark girl who made Clive hide from her, who made them both, suddenly, fear each other—she contrived to ask, lightly: ‘Is anybody shackled nowadays, my dear?’

‘Oh, we all are!’ said Clive, and he laughed. ‘People who dress for dinner, I mean, and are presented at Court and take in the “Quarterly Review”———’ He glanced at it lying on his mother’s table.

Her bitterness found an outlet. ‘I haven’t painted, it’s true, or acted, or made batik scarves,