e fire, and when he pitched the account-books away
from her and took her hand again, she let it lie in his.

He pressed it.

"Well?" he whispered with a meaning look, wanting response.

It seemed as if she had none to give, kind and sweet as she was to
him.

"I'm forgetting," he said in a few minutes, leaning forward to knock
out his pipe, "that I've a job to do for you. I'll see to that
bedstead now, shall I?"

"Why?" she said coldly. "It is all ready made up for you in the
dressing-room. What do you want to do?"

He stared, bewildered.

"I'm not going to sleep there."

"Aren't you? Then I will."

He began to see dimly the meaning of her mood; but he was stumbling
about in darkness to find her reasons for it. What reasons could she
have for so extraordinary a reply?

"My dear good girl," he cried sharply, "explain yourself."

"I don't know how to, exactly. But I have liked having my room to
myself. I wish to keep it."

"You've got some nonsense into your head--"

"It isn't nonsense. It's just fact. I've been without a husband for a
year and I've found it wonderfully restful. I can be without him some
more."

"Have you any idea of the rubbish you're talking?"

She looked at him curiously, unaffected by his authoritative tone,
and, seeing her disaffection, he felt uncomfortably at a loss, since
his authority had failed him. He was dumbfounded; angry and stricken
at once; he had not the least idea now what tone to take.

He dropped suddenly to persuasion.

"Look here, my dear girl, tell me what you're thinking of. You know
I'm only too anxious to respect your feelings and wishes; I don't
think I've ever violated them to the least extent, have I? If I have,
it was unknowingly. You women have such queer moods. What is it?
Perhaps you're unwell and nervy, though you look all right. Anyway,
come here and tell me all about it."

To avoid his encircling arm she rose. She laid one arm along the
mantelpiece, and put one foot on the fender as if to be warmed; the
attitude struck him as exceedingly negligent, and when she began to
speak it was in no sense as an argument, but as a statement of facts
long ago cut-and-dried for storage in her mind.

"I'm sorry. I'm really sorry. But I don't want you. I couldn't bear
you in my room."

She had got it out, and he was saying nothing, only sitting forward,
hands on knees, looking up at her, horror, anger and disbelief in his
face.

She went on: "It'll be no go