He went in front of her down the garden path to hold the gate. In his shirt, without the clumsy velveteen coat, she saw again how slender he was, thin, stooping a little. Yet, as she passed him, there was something young and bright in his fair hair, and his quick eyes. He would be a man about thirty-seven or eight.

She plodded on into the wood, knowing he was looking after her; he upset her so much, in spite of herself.

And he, as he went indoors, was thinking: “She’s nice, she’s real! she’s nicer than she knows.”

She wondered very much about him; he seemed so unlike a gamekeeper, so unlike a workingman anyhow; although he had something in common with the local people. But also something very uncommon.

“The gamekeeper, Mellors, is a curious kind of person,” she said to Clifford; “he might almost be a gentleman.”

“Might he?” said Clifford. “I hadn’t noticed.”