XVI

“Yes, he came later, when it had cleared up, to feed the pheasants with corn.”

She spoke with amazing nonchalance. Mrs. Bolton, who was listening in the next room, heard in sheer admiration. To think a woman could carry it off so naturally!

“And suppose he’d come while you were running about in the rain with nothing on, like a maniac?”

“I suppose he’d have had the fright of his life, and cleared out as fast as he could.”

Clifford still stared at her transfixed. What he thought in his under-consciousness he would never know. And he was too much taken aback to form one clear thought in his upper-consciousness. He just simply accepted what she said, in a sort of blank. And he admired her. He could not help admiring her. She looked so flushed and handsome and smooth: love smooth.

“At least,” he said, subsiding, “you’ll be lucky if you’ve got off without a severe cold.”

“Oh, I haven’t got a cold,” she replied. She was thinking to herself of the other man’s words: Tha’s got the nicest woman’s arse of anybody! She wished, she dearly wished she could tell Clifford that this had been said her, during the famous thunderstorm. However! She bore herself rather like an offended queen, and went upstairs to change.

That evening, Clifford wanted to be nice to her. He was reading one of the latest scientific-religious books: he had a streak of a spurious sort of religion in him, and was egocentrically concerned with the future of his own ego. It was like his habit to make conversation to Connie about some book, since the conversation between them had to be made, almost chemically. They had almost chemically to concoct it in their heads.