ere a different
sort of woman when you first came."

"Yes," she admitted, "I was a different sort of woman."

"You don't remember those days, I suppose," he went on, "the days when
you had brown hair, when you used to carry roses about and sing to
yourself while you beat your work out of that wretched typewriter?"

"No," she answered, "I do not remember those days. They do not belong to
me. It is some other woman you are thinking of."

Their eyes met. Mr. Fentolin turned away first. He struck the bell at
his elbow. She rose at once.

"Be off!" he ordered. "When you look at me like that, you send shivers
through me! You'll have to go; I can see you'll have to go. I can't keep
you any longer. You are the only person on the face of the earth who
dares to say things to me which make me think, the only person who
doesn't shrink at the sound of my voice. You'll have to go. Send Sarson
to me at once. You've upset me!"

She listened to his words in expressionless silence. When he had
finished, carrying her book in her hand, she very quietly moved towards
the door. He watched her, leaning a little forward in his chair,
his lips parted, his eyes threatening. She walked with steady, even
footsteps. She carried herself with almost machine-like erectness; her
skirts were noiseless. She had the trick of turning the handle of the
door in perfect silence. He heard her calm voice in the hall.

"Doctor Sarson is to go to Mr. Fentolin."

Mr. Fentolin sat quite still, feeling his own pulse.

"That woman," he muttered to himself, "that--woman--some day I shouldn't
be surprised if she really--"

He paused. The doctor had entered the room.

"I am upset, Sarson," he declared. "Come and feel my pulse quickly. That
woman has upset me."

"Miss Price?"

"Miss Price, d-n it! Lucy--yes!"

"It seems unlike her," the doctor remarked. "I have never heard her
utter a useless syllable in my life."

Mr. Fentolin held out his wrist.

"It's what she doesn't say," he muttered.

The doctor produced his watch. In less than a minute he put it away.

"This is quite unnecessary," he pronounced. "Your pulse is wonderful."

"Not hurried? No signs of palpitation?"

"You have seven or eight footmen, all young men," Doctor Sarson replied
drily. "I will wager that there isn't one of them has a pulse so
vigorous as yours."

Mr. Fentolin leaned a little back in his chair. An expression of
satisfaction crept over his face.

"You reassure me,