gravity in his
voice. What could he mean? Oh, yes.

"I hope that that last phase of the mine will soon be settled," said
she. "It was that which curtailed your cruise, you will remember."

"I certainly do remember."

"I hope the business will soon be settled one way or another. I don't
think this running to Paris so frequently is good for Stephen. Haven't
you noticed how poorly he has been looking of late?"

"He didn't seem to me to be particularly robust. But I think that he
pulled himself together while he was here. Oh, yes! another week will
see us free from this business."

"And with an extra million or so in your pockets."

"Well, something in that way."

That was how they talked while the servants were present--about business
and money and matters that may be discussed in the presence of servants.

Then they went together into the drawing room. It was not yet dark
enough for the candles to be lighted. The exquisite summer twilight was
hanging over the river and the banks opposite, wooded from the water's
edge to the summit. It was the hour of delicate blue touched with pink
about the borders. The hour of purple and silver stars had not yet come.

She threw open one of the windows on its hinges, and in a moment the
room was flooded with the perfume of the roses of the garden. She stood
in the opening of the window and seemed to drink in the garden scents
before they floated into the room. Then from some secret nestling place
in the dark depths of the clipped hedge there came the even-song of a
blackbird. It was replied to from the distance; and the silence that
followed only seemed to be silence. It was a silence made vocal by the
bending of a thousand notes--all musical. The blackbirds, the thrushes,
the robins made up a chorus of harmony as soothing to the soul as
silence. Then came the cooings of the wood pigeons. The occasional
shriek of a peacock was the only note out of harmony with the feeling
breathed by the twilight.

She stood at the open window, her back turned to him, for some time.
He felt slightly embarrassed. Her attitude somehow suggested to him an
imprisonment; he was captured; she was standing between him and the open
air; she was barring his passage.

Suddenly she turned. With her movement there seemed to float into the
room a great breath of rose-scent. It was only that the light showed
him more clearly at that moment the glowing whiteness of her neck and
shoulders and arms.

"Wh