When he suggested it was now time for her to tell him about herself, she postponed what she now understood would be an ordeal. For one thing, it occurred to her that her life, as far as she was concerned, could not be described by a simple succession of statements: my parents were so and so; I’ve lived in such and such places; I do such and such work. And for another, she had understood that she was attracted to him, and this discovery had upset her. When he laid his large white hand on her arm, she felt her breasts lift and sting. Her thighs were wet. But she had nothing in common with him. She could not remember ever, not once in her life, feeling a physical response for a man who was not in some way kin to her. She had always responded to a look, a smile, the tone of a voice, a laugh. As far as she was concerned, this man was a healthy savage; and the discovery that she wanted to be in bed with him split her. She felt irritation and annoyance; she remembered feeling precisely like this when her husband attempted to rouse her by physical manipulation against her emotions. The end of that was frigidity. She thought: I might easily be a frigid woman. Then she was struck by the humour of it: she was sitting here, soft with desire for this man; worrying about a hypothetical frigidity. She laughed, and he enquired: ‘What’s funny?’ She replied at random, and he said good-humouredly: ‘OK, you think I’m a hick too. Well that’s OK with me. Now I have a suggestion. I’ve got about twenty telephone calls to make, and I want to make them from my hotel. Come back with me, I’ll give you a drink, and then when I’ve finished the telephone calls, you can tell me about you.’ Ella agreed; then wondered if he interpreted this as a willingness on her part to go to bed with him? If so, he showed no signs of it. It struck her that with the men she met in her world, she could interpret what they felt or were thinking from a glance, a gesture, or an atmosphere; so that words told her nothing about them she did not know already. But with this man, she knew nothing at all. He was married; but she did not know, as she would have done for instance with Robert Brun, what his attitude would be to infidelity. Since she knew nothing about him, it followed he knew nothing about her: he did not know, for instance, that her nipples were burning. She agreed, therefore, and casually, to go with him to his hotel.