that she had had a letter from Val, for he had written two days ago, and so she would not hear again for several days, a ready pen not being his.  And she was beginning to be guiltily conscious that she did not enjoy getting his letters; they seemed somehow to disrupt atmosphere instead of creating it.  Everything was different from that day on the river when Val had told her he loved her and it had all seemed so simple.  She had accepted him then because she was so fond of him, and she knew everyone would be pleased, and also she was pleased herself.  He was so young and jolly, and they had always fitted so well, though in his music—­he was by way of being a young composer—­he was out of her depth.

They fitted too well; since their engagement Georgie, feeling it lacked excitement and being both very young and a woman, and therefore an experimentalist, had tried to get up little scenes so as to have quarrels and reconciliations.  She would do things which she had first got him to say he did not like; then she defied him, only to meet with an ineffectual annoyance on his part.  When after each scene she gave way, as she had meant to do all along, she knew in her heart that it was because she chose to submit, not because he had the strength to compel her.  He was too young and inexperienced to see that she was young enough to be craving for a master, while at the same time he was old enough to want peace and mutual consideration.  He would have been shocked at the idea of using brutality to her, and brutality was what Georgie, without recognising it, wanted.

She shook herself impatiently now as the thought of Val came to her when, turning over her handkerchiefs to choose a clean one, she came upon his last letter.  Dear old Val! ... but he had no part in this clear, pale spring day and all it was going to hold.

She checked herself as she was bursting into song in her bath because she thought of tired-looking Judy still asleep in the next room, but something in her went on singing to meet this new fine day.  She had her breakfast in solitary state, because Mrs. Penticost would neither let her wait nor Judy be disturbed, and then she flung a coat over her “Fishwife” dress and went out into the morning.  She went over to Cloom to see whether Nicky had forgiven her and would sit for his portrait as usual.

Thinking of Nicky made her think of Ishmael, and she went over again in her mind what he had looked like when he had been so angry yesterday.  She had seen a new Ishmael then, a more interesting one; she was vaguely aware of liking him better than before.  Perhaps it might be rather fun to see if she could make him angry.  Probably he would only be really angry with anyone he cared for, and of course he didn’t care for her at all.  Georgie pondered that point as she went.  She was honest and sweet, but she was an arrant little flirt, and Val was not the first man who had kissed her.  She never pretended anything