MISS MAT FIELD'S NEW YEAR 435

do with him; but then, at other times, after a happy ex-
citing evening, he would reach out to her in sudden
passion and her own mood would flare up to match with
his, and in some little patch of darkness or in the taxi
going home, they would kiss and clutch and strain to one
another, without a single word of love passing between
them, and she would be left shaken and gasping, unable
to decide whether she was a woman who was falling in
love with this strange unlikely man or a crazy little fool
who had just had too much excitement and wine, who
ought to go and have a good hot bath and learn sense
and decency. And that was all, so far, though even she
guessed it could not go on like that. Meanwhile, be-
tween these curious expeditions, she chatted and
grumbled as usual at the club, wrote home in the old
strain once a week, and quietly worked away at the office,
where nobody knew what was happening to her.

Then, one night, as he took her back to the Club, he
said, quite casually: "I see they're having a nice fine spell
on the South Coast. What about a trip down there next
week-end, Lilian? Might get hold of a car/'

"Oh yes/' she cried at once, without thinking, for
week-ends out of London were her dream, even in
January. "Let's do that."

"Is it a bargain?" he said quickly, triumphantly.

And then she realised what it meant. "No, no. I'm
sorry. I spoke without thinking."

"Ah, she spoke without thinking, did she? You do far
too much thinking. Girls shouldn't think too much, not
good-looking ones, anyhow. When I first met you, you'd
done nothing but think for a long time, and you xveren't
looking too cheerful on it."

She made no reply. She was annoyed, partly because