As she passed him he touched the end of her fur stole with a gesture that was almost imperative.

His eyes had dropped their veil of pleasantry, and she was aware, with a troubled mind, that he was holding back something as a last resource if she continued to prove intractable.

Again and again she had this feeling when she was with him--an uneasy intuition that his good humour was not entirely unassumed, that he was concealing a dangerous weapon beneath his offensive familiarity.
"After all I may be going to surprise you," he said lightly enough, yet with this disturbing implication of some meaning that she could not discern.

"What if I tell you that I've no intention of making love to you ?" "You mean there is something else you want to see me about ?" She breathed a sigh of relief, and her light steps fell gradually into the measure of his.

Her conscience pricked her unpleasantly when she remembered that there had been a time when she would have spoken less curtly.