“While I’m waiting about in Glasgow —” he was speaking again. “— I hear there’s a cottage and studio I might get at a place called Carmunnock – said to be nice. Do you know that part? I couldn’t stand being in Glasgow itself.”

Joanna spoke a little about the country round Carmunnock, and talk faded out.

They rose indefinitely and moved to the door.

On the lighted stairs each looked timidly at each to discover the new thing, the fine, frail intimacy that had sprung up between them in the darkness.

“Do you know what I wanted when I was watching you dance?” said he, smiling into her eyes. “I wanted to see you on the Downs, in the wind, with your face red from the sun, and your hair all blown about anyhow. Do you think I ever shall?”

“I’m afraid there are no Downs at Carmunnock,” she replied, smiling back with an unaccustomed touch of coquetry.

“That’s a pity.”

“But there are moors.”

“A moor would serve,” he allowed, showing his amusement.

“Will your wife be coming to Glasgow?” Joanna presently asked, in a different, very steady voice. And at the question so flatly put, Louis gave her a glance in which resentment was struggling with his amusement.

“She may, or may not,” he answered, in some confusion.

This woman’s bluntness stimulated, and at the same time repelled him a little. She had had a husband, he told himself; so she must know her whereabouts. Had she been the untouched creature she seemed, of course he would have let her be. There was danger in her certainly. But it was his danger. He supposed she could look out for herself.

Upstairs he asked her for the waltz which had just begun. She refused: he insisted. But it was a failure. And when he had gone half round the room with her, trying every few turns to make her reverse, he stopped and took her away.

“You were right: you are no waltzer, my child,” he said, resignedly.

At his rudeness the tears sprang to Joanna’s eyes. She was already sick with vexation at her failure.

“I was never allowed to have lessons,” she said, biting her trembling lower lip. “This is the first dance I’ve ever been to.”

Upon this he eyed her quickly.

“Well, well, never mind my rudeness,” he said in hasty shame. “It’s easy enough to learn. I didn’t want to hurt you, but it was such a disappointment.”

Though there was some penitence here, he was still childishly overcome by his impatience of being thwarted in a pleasure. He asked no further question, and Joanna felt he would not have been interested had she told him of the prayer meeting and her hidden ball-dress. Yet she knew he was somehow vitally interested in her. How was it, then? She was at a loss, and groping for the key of his nature.