It was after this that Loerke, who had never yet spoken to her personally, began to ask her of her state.

‘You are not married at all, are you?’ he asked.

She looked full at him.

‘Not in the least,’ she replied, in her measured way. Loerke laughed, wrinkling up his face oddly. There was a thin wisp of his hair straying on his forehead, she noticed that his skin was of a clear brown colour, his hands, his wrists. And his hands seemed closely prehensile. He seemed like topaz, so strangely brownish and pellucid.

‘Good,’ he said.

Still it needed some courage for him to go on.

‘Was Mrs Birkin your sister?’ he asked.