'You know quite well, Leonard, that I don't mean anything of the
kind. But there was something I wanted to say to you, and I wished
that we should be alone. Can you not guess what it is?'

'No, I'll be hanged if I can!' was his response, lazily given.

Despite her resolution she turned her head; she could not meet his
eyes. It cut her with a sharp pain to notice when she turned again
that he was not looking at her. He continued fanning himself with
his hat as he gazed out at the view. She felt that the critical
moment of her life had come, that it was now or never as to her
fulfilling her settled intention. So with a rush she went on her
way:

'Leonard, you and I have been friends a long time. You know my views
on some points, and that I think a woman should be as free to act as
a man!' She paused; words and ideas did not seem to flow with the
readiness she expected. Leonard's arrogant assurance completed the
dragging her back to earth which her own self-consciousness began:

'Drive on, old girl! I know you're a crank from Crankville on some
subjects. Let us have it for all you're worth. I'm on the grass and
listening.'

Stephen paused. 'A crank from Crankville!'--this after her nights of
sleepless anxiety; after the making of the resolution which had cost
her so much, and which was now actually in process of realisation.
Was it all worth so much? why not abandon it now? . . . Abandon it!
Abandon a resolution! All the obstinacy of her nature--she classed
it herself as firmness--rose in revolt. She shook her head angrily,