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 and bowed her head against his breast with a lovely, reassuring tenderness. "Why, oh why did you do it?" she whispered.

He was too astonished to reply. For he had thought she had done it! He hadn't even known that there were kisses as utter as that; he hadn't dreamt that really nice people took such dizzy liberties with each other; even had he known, he wouldn't have dared. Swiftly his shadow-self prompted him. Women, it explained, were not supposed to take the initiative, consequently had to pretend they hadn't; the pretence was a mere convention, to be respected. Perhaps they weren't actually aware that they were taking the initiative. It was gentlemanly to give them the benefit of the doubt. He felt older again.

"How could I help it?" he said ambiguously, but with a clear conscience.

Sophie lifted her head and looked into his eyes. "What must you think of me?"

This inconsistency made him laugh, and with a sudden new sense of his authority and the license it implied, he gathered her up beside him. It was far less embarrassing to have her pressed close to him than to sit facing her. For as long as she remained in his arms, clinging, confirming his right to molest, there was no need to answer the insistent little questions that were beating against his brain: what next? what next?

There was a sound of footsteps in the hall, menial