little, afraid of him. But then, the soft warm flame of life was stronger than he, and the real things were hidden from him.
The reading finished. She was startled. She looked up, and was more startled still to see Clifford watching her with pale, uncanny eyes, like hate.
"Thank you so much! You do read Racine beautifully!" she said softly.
"Almost as beautifully as you listen to him," he said cruelly.
"What are you making?" he asked.
"I'm making a child's dress, for Mrs. Flint's baby."
He turned away. A child! A child! That was all her obsession.
"After all," he said, in a declamatory voice, "one gets all one wants out of Racine. Emotions that are ordered and given shape are more important than disorderly emotions."
She watched him with wide, vague, veiled eyes.
"Yes, I'm sure they are," she said.
"The modern world has only vulgarised emotion by letting it loose. What we need is classic control."
"Yes," she said slowly, thinking of himself listening with vacant face to the emotional idiocy of the radio. "People pretend to have emotions, and they really feel nothing. I suppose that is being romantic."
"Exactly!" he said.
As a matter of fact, he was tired. This evening had tired him. He would rather have been with his technical books, or his pit manager, or listening-in to the radio.
Mrs. Bolton came in with two glasses of malted milk: for Clifford, to make him sleep, and for Connie to fatten her again. It was a regular night-cap she had introduced.
Connie was glad to go, when she had drunk her glass, and thankful she needn't help Clifford to bed. She took his glass and put it on the tray, then took the tray, to leave it outside.
"Good night Clifford! Do sleep well! The Racine gets into one like a dream. Good night!"
She had drifted to the door. She was going without kissing him good-night. He watched her with sharp, cold eyes. So! She did not even kiss him good-night, after he had spent an evening reading to her. Such depths of callousness in her! Even if the kiss was but a formality, it was on such formalities that life depends. She was a
