“What did Mrs. Maldon say?” Rachel asked.

“Well, she didn’t say much.  She believed me, naturally.  And then old Batch came.  I wasn’t going to have a regular scene with him up there, so I left.  I thought that was the only dignified thing to do.  I wanted to tell you, and I’ve told you.  Don’t you think it’s a shame?”

Rachel answered passionately—­

“I do.”

She answered thus because she had a tremendous desire to answer thus.  To herself she said:  “Do I?...  Yes, I do.”  Louis’ eyes drew sympathy out of her.  It seemed to her to be of the highest importance that those appealing eyes should not appeal in vain.

“Item, he made a fearful fuss about you and me being at the cinema last night.”

“I should like to know what it’s got to do with him!” said Rachel, almost savagely.  The word “item” puzzled her.  Not understanding it, she thought she had misheard.

“That’s what I thought, too,” said Louis, and added, very gravely:  “At the same time I’m really awfully sorry.  Perhaps I oughtn’t to have asked you.  It was my fault.  But old Batch would make the worst of anything.”

Rachel replied with feverish conviction—­

“Mr. Batchgrew ought to be ashamed.  You weren’t to blame, and I won’t hear of it!”

Louis started forward with a sudden movement of the left arm.

“You’re magnificent,” he said, with emotion.

Rachel trembled, and shut her eyes.  She heard his voice again, closer to her, repeating with even greater emotion:  “You’re magnificent.”  Tears were in her eyes.  Through them she looked at him.  And his form was so graceful, his face so nice, so exquisitely kind and lovable and loving, that her admiration became intense, even to the point of pain.  She thought of Batchgrew, not with hate, but with pity.  He was a monster, but he could not help it.  He alone was responsible for all slanders against Louis.  He alone had put Mrs. Maldon against Louis.  Louis was obviously the most innocent of beings.  Mrs. Maiden’s warning, “The woman who married him would suffer horribly,” was manifestly absurd.  “Suffer horribly”—­what a stinging phrase, like a needle broken in a wound!  She felt tired and weak, above all tired of loneliness.

His hand was on hers.  She trembled anew.  She was not Rachel, but some new embodiment of surrender and acquiescence.  And the change was delicious, fearful....  She thought:  “I could die for him.”  She forgot that a few minutes before she had been steeling herself against him.  She wanted him to kiss her, and waited an eternity.  And when he had kissed her, and she was in a maze of rapture, a tiny idea shaped itself clearly in her mind for an instant:  “This is wrong.  But I don’t care.  He is mine”—­and then melted like a cloud in a burning sky.  And a sense of the miraculousness of destiny overcame her.  In two days had happened enough for two years.  It was staggering to think that only two days earlier