Piers, in the tone of one who
challenged the world. "And now look here, Avery! Let's make the best of
things for the kiddie's sake! She's had a rotten time all her days. Let's
give her a decent send-off, what? Let's give her the time of her life
before she goes!"

He got up suddenly from his chair and went to the open window.

Avery turned her head to watch him, but for some reason she could
not speak.

He went on vehemently, his face turned from her. "In Heaven's name don't
let's be sorry! It's such a big thing to go out happy. Let's play the
game! I know you can; you were always plucky. Let's give her everything
she wants and some over! What, Avery, what? I'm not asking for myself."

She did not know exactly what he was asking, but she did not dare to tell
him so. She sat quite silent, feeling her heart quicken, striving
desperately to be calm.

He flung round suddenly, and came to her. "Will you do it?" he said.

She raised her eyes to his. She was white to the lips.

He made one of his quick, half-foreign gestures. "Don't!" he said
harshly. "You make me feel such a brute. Can't you trust me--can't you
pretend to trust me--for Jeanie's sake?" His hand closed fiercely on the
back of her chair. He bent towards her. "It's only a hollow bargain.
You'll hate it of course. Do you suppose I shall enjoy it any better? Do
you suppose I would ask it of you for any reason but this?"

Something in his face or voice pierced her. She felt again that dreadful
pain at her heart, as if the blood were draining from it with every beat.

"I don't know what to say to you, Piers," she said at last.

He bit his lip in sheer impatience, but the next moment he controlled
himself. "I'm asking a difficult thing of you," he said, forcing his
voice to a quiet level. "It isn't particularly easy for me either;
perhaps in a sense, it's even harder. But you must have known when you
sent for me that something of the kind was inevitable. What you didn't
know--possibly--was that Jeanie is grieving badly over our estrangement.
She wants to draw us together again. Will you suffer it? Will you play
the game with me? It won't be for long."

His eyes looked straight into hers, but they held only a great darkness
in which no flicker of light burned. Avery felt as if the gulf between
them had widened to a measureless abyss. Once she could have read him
like an open book; but now she had not the vaguest clue to his feelings
or his motives. He had