Fen stopped and swung around to face her. “No,” she said forcefully. “Nor do I, at all, not inside, and yet I do it, all the time. Because that’s what one is supposed to do. One is meant to be pleasing, and—and cherishable, as you said, and all those other things, and I’ve tried not to be like that, but it just doesn’t work!”

“But I can’t see why it would.” Pat was hopelessly out of her depth. “That is, if you want Jimmy to be straightforward with you, why are you putting on an act with him?”

Fen’s lips parted. Pat pressed on, recklessly. “Take the shooting. You did awfully well, you worked so hard, but as soon as Jimmy arrived, you started the fluffy business again. And he’d love to know you could shoot. He’d be thrilled. Why didn’t you tell him?”

Fen didn’t reply. Her eyes were huge.

“Why didn’t you say?” Pat asked again. “Because I’m sure you don’t need to put on a difference face for Jimmy. You’re lovely as you are, and if he saw you as you are, surely—”

“But he didn’t,” Fen said. “He didn’t see me; he didn’t even propose to me. He proposed to rich Sir Peter Carruth’s daughter. And I do understand he needs the money—but if he liked me, wouldn’t he have looked at me properly?”

“But if you liked him, why wouldn’t you show yourself properly, instead of pretending?”

“Because one can’t,” Fen said. “That’s the whole point of different faces, that’s why we have them. Because if you let people know who you really are and still all they see is a stupid trollop with delusions of being a New Woman—”

“Fen!”

“Look at me. I don’t look serious. I’ve got a big bosom and a giggle. Nobody ever takes me seriously. Daddy has never explained telephones to me, not once, and when I set myself to learn he looked at me as though I were a dog that had set itself to turn head over heels, and laughed, and then two days later he sent me to finishing school. So that was that. I am pretty and sweet.” She enunciated the words. “I have been brought up to be pretty and sweet just as you’ve been brought up to be uncompromising and I want to be uncompromising. I want to absolutely smash Maurice Haworth when he says vile things instead of turning it away and pretending not to be offended in order to smooth things over. You wouldn’t giggle if he insinuated something horrible about you.”