u suppose
society would have gone to fetch her out? You say you were afraid for
Leila and that she was afraid for you. Don't you see what all these
complications of feeling mean? Simply that you were too nervous at the
moment to let things happen naturally, just as you're too nervous now
to judge them rationally." He paused and turned his eyes to her face.
"Don't try to just yet. Give yourself a little more time. Give _me_ a
little more time. I've always known it would take time."

He moved nearer, and she let him have her hand.

With the grave kindness of his face so close above her she felt like a
child roused out of frightened dreams and finding a light in the room.

"Perhaps you're right--" she heard herself begin; then something within
her clutched her back, and her hand fell away from him.

"I know I'm right: trust me," he urged. "We'll talk of this in Florence
soon."

She stood before him, feeling with despair his kindness, his patience
and his unreality. Everything he said seemed like a painted gauze let
down between herself and the real facts of life; and a sudden desire
seized her to tear the gauze into shreds.

She drew back and looked at him with a smile of superficial reassurance.
"You _are_ right--about not talking any longer now. I'm nervous and
tired, and it would do no good. I brood over things too much. As you
say, I must try not to shrink from people." She turned away and glanced
at the clock. "Why, it's only ten! If I send you off I shall begin
to brood again; and if you stay we shall go on talking about the same
thing. Why shouldn't we go down and see Margaret Wynn for half an hour?"

She spoke lightly and rapidly, her brilliant eyes on his face. As she
watched him, she saw it change, as if her smile had thrown a too vivid
light upon it.

"Oh, no--not to-night!" he exclaimed.

"Not to-night? Why, what other night have I, when I'm off at
dawn? Besides, I want to show you at once that I mean to be more
sensible--that I'm not going to be afraid of people any more. And I
should really like another glimpse of little Charlotte." He stood
before her, his hand in his beard, with the gesture he had in moments of
perplexity. "Come!" she ordered him gaily, turning to the door.

He followed her and laid his hand on her arm. "Don't you think--hadn't
you better let me go first and see? They told me they'd had a tiring day
at the dressmaker's* I daresay they have gone to bed."

"But you said they'd a