Kind Are Her Answers by Mary Renault

the last year, exceedingly fond of her. He hated lying to her as he had not hated lying to Janet; quite apart from the professional side of it, which left him no peace all day. She was leaning forward in her chair, peering out the window.
    “Now, I wonder where my little Christie is. Naughty girl, she must have forgotten the time. I particularly told her you were coming; I know you like to have some one to help with the lifting. But I’ll ring for Pedlow.”
    “No, please don’t bother. I think the chest will be enough to-day.” He listened, made out a fresh prescription, and left quickly.
    He did not notice that he was doing a good thirty down the drive (which had a shocking surface) till he rounded a blind bend and saw Christie, walking well in the middle and quite oblivious of him, a few yards ahead. He just managed to avoid running her down by jamming on both sets of brakes, and skidding the car into a laurel-bush.
    She was dressed for the street, wearing a long loose coat that swung pleasantly as she turned to smile at him. Her escape seemed not to have impressed her much. On Kit the effect of seeing her was like that of a violent blow in the diaphragm, uncomplicated by pleasure of any kind.
    “Good afternoon,” he said. Aiming at a pointed formality, he ejected it like an insult.
    Her smile disappeared. It was the only alteration in her face that anger allowed him to notice. “Good afternoon. Forgive me for delaying you.” She prepared to walk on.
    Kit made a half-gesture towards his hat; but it never arrived, nor did the frigidly polite formula on his tongue take shape. He found them inadequate. What he wanted was a scene. He discovered in some astonishment that he had no intention of leaving without one. I can’t behave like this, he told himself; and was pleased, in a hot and painful way, by the certainty that he would.
    “It really isn’t a very good idea,” he said, “to go to sleep in the middle of the road.”
    In the first moment of meeting, Christie had gone rather white. Now the colour returned, with interest, to her face; she thrust her hands into the pockets of her loose coat, and planted her feet apart. “This is a private drive. If you hadn’t been tearing along as if it were the Kingston by-pass, you’d have had room to pull up.”
    “I did pull up, or you wouldn’t be here. But it helps if the pedestrian makes some contribution.”
    “Yes, I expect so. Don’t let me keep you; I know you never have any time to waste.”
    Kit had reached a stage when even this was not sufficient to dislodge him. “If you’d ever seen a really bad road smash,” he said, “you’d be more careful.”
    “I have seen one. … My father and mother were both killed in it.”
    “Oh. I’m sorry,” said Kit inaccurately. He was, in point of fact, furious with her for taking such a low advantage. As there seemed nothing to add to this, he said at last, “Well, I’ll say good-bye.”
    “That made you look rather an ass, didn’t it?” she remarked as he was moving to go. “I thought it would. That’s why I made it up.”
    Kit stopped in his tracks and, when he could speak, said, “Well, my God.”
    “You looked so silly and smug, I had to get some sort of a rise out of you. Now do go home.”
    Kit drew in a sharp breath through his nose. He wanted, quite simply, to get his hands on her and beat her. Being normally even-tempered, he was somewhat shattered by the experience. He stared at her, his face setting. The girl took a backward step which brought her up against the laurels at the side of the drive.
    “I’m not frightened,” she said.
    Slowly, Kit’s years of cultivated restraint reasserted themselves. He said at last, with deadly calm, “Possibly you might like to let me know, before you go, what you propose to tell your aunt about last night. She appears not to know that I called. It might be an advantage if we both stuck to the same lie.”
    She looked up quickly, forgetting for a