s--"

"She is quite well?"

Again a moment's hesitation.

"Fairly well, only ... Very tired."

"I don't wonder she is tired; she does so much. Always rushing about
after something new. They seem very restless people in America."

"They're alive, anyway; they don't rust! They're bound to get the most
that's possible out of life, and they get it! It shakes a fellow up to
get out of the rut here and have a taste of their methods."

"You like it--better than _home_?" Pixie paused, teapot in hand, to
cast upon him a glance full of patriotic reproach, whereat he laughed
and shrugged his shoulders.

"Isn't home the place where one settles down, and which feels to be most
congenial?"

"You find America more congenial than England?"

He shrugged again, and the old gleam of laughter showed in his eyes.

"Now look here, isn't it bad luck to begin asking embarrassing questions
straight away off? I hoped I was going to avoid this point! If you
must have the truth--I _do_! America suits me!"--his smile was full of
complacence--"I suit America. That's not by any means a sure thing.
Many Englishmen throw up the sponge and return home. They can't adapt
themselves, don't _want_ to adapt themselves. In my case I had had no
business experience in England, so I began with an open mind without
prejudice, and--it _went_: I like the life, I like the people. I like
the climate. The climate is answerable for a lot of the extra energy
which you over here call `restlessness.' You want to do just about
twice as much beneath those skies!" He cast an impatient glance towards
the window. "It's all so _grey_! ... I've had a headache straight on
the last two days."

"Tea's ready now; it will do you good. There are hot scones in that
dish," Pixie said quietly. The greyness of the street seemed to have
entered the room--to have entered her heart. It was _all_ grey. ...
"We knew, of course, that you _must_ like it, when you stayed so long."

Now there was something which was _not grey_. Stanor's face flushed a
painful red; he looked at his cup, at the floor, in the fire, at
anything but in Pixie's face. His voice was hard with repressed
embarrassment.

"Er--just so; you would, of course! There was work on hand. I waited
to see it through. When a man has spent two years in the same place so
many claims arise, in social life as well as in work. It is difficult
for him to break away at a moment's notice. He is hardl