She wrote that he might
come....

She heard his voice in the hall. The old janitor of the building had
remembered him. Beth's hands, which had lain idle, began leaping
strangely from the inner turmoil. She wished now she had met him
somewhere apart from the studio. His tone brought back thoughts too
fast to be tabulated, and his accent was slightly English. She divined
from this he had been out of the country--possibly had returned to New
York on a British ship. How well she knew his plastic intelligence! It
was so characteristic and easy for him--this little affectation.... She
was quite cold to him. Bedient had put him away upon the far-effacing
surfaces of her mind.

The knocker fell. Rising, she learned her weakness. As she crossed the
room the mirror showed her a woman who has met many deaths.

He greeted her with excited enthusiasm, but the tension which her
change in appearance caused, was imperfectly concealed by his words and
manner.... She knew his every movement, his every thought before it was
half-uttered, as a mother without illusions knows her grown son, who
has failed to become the man she hoped. They talked with effort about
earlier days. He treated her with a consideration he had never shown
before. The challenge of sex was missing. Duty, and an old and deep
regard--these Beth felt from him. She attributed it to the havoc of a
few weeks upon her face. She wished he would not come again; but he
did.

It was the next morning--and she was painting. Again the knocker and
his cheery greeting. Beth sat down to work--and then thoughts of the
two men came to her. She should not have tried to paint, with Framtree
in the room.... Thoughts arose, until she could not have borne another.
The colors of her canvas flicked out, leaving a sort of welted gray of
flesh, from which life is beaten. She rubbed her eyes.

"Jim," she said at last, "why did you come back?"

He came forward, and stood over her. "I wanted to see if there was any
change, Beth,--any chance."

She regarded him, noted how effective is humility with such magnificent
proportions of strength.

"There isn't, Jim," she answered. "At least, not the change you look
for. I'm sorry if you really wanted it, but I think in time you'll be
glad----"

"Never, Beth."

She smiled.

Framtree hesitated, as if there were something further he would like to
say. He refrained, however.... Beth gave her hand, which he kissed for
old love's sake.