ter a few inanities had been succeeded by an
awkward pause. "I've got to talk business with you, so I suppose we may
as well begin, eh?" His tone was fairly blithe, but it was that of a man
who was throwing off with powerful ease the weariness of somewhat
exasperating annoyances. Since lunch he had had a brief interview with
Sarah Gailey.

"Yes," she agreed glumly.

"Have you decided what you're going to do?" He began to smile
sympathetically as he spoke.

"I'm not going back to the paper," she curtly answered, cutting short
the smile with fierceness, almost with ferocity. Beyond question she was
rude in her bitterness. She asked herself: "Why do I talk like this? Why
can't I talk naturally and gently and cheerfully? I've really got
nothing against him." But she could not talk otherwise than she did
talk. It was by this symptom of biting acrimony that her agitation
showed itself. She knew that she was scowling as she looked at the
opposite wall, but she could not smooth away the scowl.

"No, I suppose not," he said quietly. "But are you thinking of coming
back to Turnhill?"

She remained mute for some seconds. A feeling of desolation came over
her, and it seemed to her that she welcomed it, trying to intensify it,
and yielding her features to it. "How do I know?" she muttered at
length, shrugging her shoulders.

"Because if you aren't," he resumed, "it's no use you keeping that house
of yours empty. You must remember it's just as you left it; and the
things in it aren't taking any good, either."

She shrugged her shoulders again.

"I don't see that it matters to anybody but me," she said, after another
pause, with a sort of frigid and disdainful nonchalance. And once more
she reflected: "Is it possible that I can behave so odiously?"

He stood up suddenly.

"I don't know what you and Sarah have been plotting together," he said,
wounded and contemptuous, yet with lightness. "But I'm sure I don't want
to interfere in your affairs. With Sarah's I've got to interfere,
unfortunately, and a famous time I'm having!" His nostrils grew
fastidious. "But not yours! I only promised your uncle.... Your uncle
told me you wanted me to--" He broke off.

In an instant she grew confused, alarmed, and extremely ashamed. Her
mood had changed in a flash. It seemed to her that she was in presence
of a disgraceful disaster, which she herself had brought about by wicked
and irresponsible temerity. She was like a child who, having