'Oh come! I admit that prostitution could not exist if there were not the demand that keeps it going. But the majority of these girls are just lazy sluts who prefer to lie late in bed in the morning, deck themselves out in clothes they could not otherwise afford, then spend most of their time drinking or dancing in bars and clubs, rather than do an honest day's work.'

'Perhaps that is so; but there must be exceptions.'

'No doubt there are. But what has that got to do with the fact that I tried to kiss you? In the most respectable circles, from their 'teens on, when boys and girls like each other they kiss without any thought of going to bed together afterwards. I can only suppose that you've got some awful Freudian complex that turns you into an icicle at the touch of a man.'

'It's not that,' she said with an effort. 'I'm quite normal. I enjoy being kissed by a man I like. But . . . well . . . I do need a chance to make up my mind if I like him enough first.'

The taxi had just pulled up outside the house in which she was living, and Barney said with a smile, 'Then I haven't blotted my copy-book irretrievably. I'm glad about that. May I take it that Sunday is still on?'

'Yes,' she nodded as he helped her out. 'I'm afraid I've behaved rather stupidly. I didn't mean to. Please forgive me. And thank you very much for this evening. Good night.'

Still much puzzled by her outburst he watched her go up the steps and let herself in, then he told the taxi to drive him to his rooms in Warwick Square.

While undressing, Mary did her best to reassess the relationship between them, of which only she was aware. The views he had expressed, obviously with complete honesty, on a man's obligations, or lack of them, to a girl with whom he had slept, depending on whether she had given herself to him for love or for money, had made a considerable impression on her. In fact, as a general principle, she found it difficult not to accept them. But, having for five years nurtured a bitter grudge against him as the author of all her personal sufferings, she found it impossible to dissociate him from them overnight.