know it,’ she said. ‘He waits for what somebody tells him to do. He never does anything he wants to do himself — because he doesn’t know what he wants. He’s a perfect baby.’

Gerald looked at Halliday for some moments, watching the soft, rather degenerate face of the young man. Its very softness was an attraction; it was a soft, warm, corrupt nature, into which one might plunge with gratification.

‘But he has no hold over you, has he?’ Gerald asked.

‘You see he MADE me go and live with him, when I didn’t want to,’ she replied. ‘He came and cried to me, tears, you never saw so many, saying HE COULDN’T bear it unless I went back to him. And he wouldn’t go away, he would have