Page:Encounters (Bowen).djvu/63

 Maurice tried his hardest to endure her. She heard him breathing heavily.

"It's really quite unnecessary to have a fire," she soliloquised. "But it makes a point in a room, I always think. Keeps one in countenance. Humanises things a bit. Makes a centre point for"

She became incoherent. Maurice's irritation audibly increased. They were both conscious of the oppression of the darkening, rain-loud room.

"You're forcing our hands rather," said Maurice.

"Forcing you into the banality of meeting each other sanely and normally in my drawing-room, with no necessity to converse in allusions, insinuations, and doubles-entendres? With me blessing you both and beaming sympathetically on you from afar? Bullying you into that?

"I'm sorry!" she flashed round on him, impenitently.

"You don't understand," he winced, and looked round him for his hat. "I think it would be best for me to go."

"I suppose I mustn't keep you," she