some
hidden meaning, but her grasp of things was uncertain. She had been
thrown off her balance, or poise, as Charley had, for an unwonted
second, been thrown off his pose, and her thought could not pierce
beneath the surface.

"I suppose you will be flippant at Judgment Day," she said with a bitter
laugh, for it seemed to her a monstrous thing that they should be such
an infinite distance apart.

"Why should one be serious then? There will be no question of an alibi,
or evidence for the defence--no cross-examination. A cut-and-dried
verdict!"

She ignored his words. "Shall you be at home to dinner?" she rejoined
coldly, and her eyes wandered out of the window again to that spot
across the square where heliotrope and scarlet had met.

"I fancy not," he answered, his eyes turned away also--towards the
cupboard containing the liqueur. "Better ask Billy; and keep him in, and
talk to him--I really would like you to talk to him. He admires you so
much. I wish--in fact I hope you will ask Billy to come and live with
us," he added half abstractedly. He was trying to see his way through
a sudden confusion of ideas. Confusion was rare to him, and his senses,
feeling the fog, embarrassed by a sudden air of mystery and a cloud of
futurity, were creeping to a mind-path of understanding.

"Don't be absurd," she said coldly. "You know I won't ask him, and you
don't want him."

"I have always said that decision is the greatest of all qualities--even
when the decision is bad. It saves so much worry, and tends to health."
Suddenly he turned to the desk and opened a tin box. "Here is further
practice for your admirable gift." He opened a paper. "I want you to
sign off for this building--leaving it to my absolute disposal." He
spread the paper out before her.

She turned pale and her lips tightened. She looked at him squarely in
the eyes. "My wedding-gift!" she said. Then she shrugged her shoulders.
A moment she hesitated, and in that moment seemed to congeal. "You need
it?" she asked distantly.

He inclined his head, his eye never leaving hers. With a swift angry
motion she caught the glove from her left hand, and, doubling it back,
dragged it off. A smooth round ring came off with it and rolled upon the
floor.

Stooping, he picked up the ring, and handed it back to her, saying:
"Permit me." It was her wedding-ring. She took it with a curious
contracted look and put it on the finger again, then pulled off the
other glove qui