ight. Then he glanced at Raut, and seemed to recover
himself suddenly. "Of course," he said, "I promised to show you
the works under their proper dramatic conditions. It's odd how I
could have forgotten."

"If I am troubling you--" began Raut.

Horrocks started again. A new light had suddenly come into
the sultry gloom of his eyes. "Not in the least," he said.

"Have you been telling Mr. Raut of all these contrasts of
flame and shadow you think so splendid?" said the woman, turning
now to her husband for the first time, her confidence creeping back
again, her voice just one half-note too high. "That dreadful
theory of yours that machinery is beautiful, and everything else in
the world ugly. I thought he would not spare you, Mr. Raut. It's
his great theory, his one discovery in art."

"I am slow to make discoveries," said Horrocks grimly, damping
her suddenly. "But what I discover . . . . ." He stopped.

"Well?" she said.

"Nothing;" and suddenly he rose to his feet.

"I promised to show you the works," he said to Raut, and put
his big, clumsy hand on his friend's shoulder. "And you are ready
to go?"

"Quite," said Raut, and stood up also.

There was another pause. Each of them peered through the
indistinctness of the dusk at the other two. Horrocks' hand still
rested on Raut's shoulder. Raut half fancied still that the
incident was trivial after all. But Mrs. Horrocks knew her husband
better, knew that grim quiet in his voice, and the confusion in her
mind took a vague shape of physical evil. "Very well", said
Horrocks, and, dropping his hand, turned towards the door.

"My hat?" Raut looked round in the half-light.

"That's my work-basket," said Mrs. Horrocks, with a gust of
hysterical laughter. Their hands came together on the back of the
chair. "Here it is!" he said. She had an impulse to warn him in
an undertone, but she could not frame a word. "Don't go!" and
"Beware of him!" struggled in her mind, and the swift moment
passed.

"Got it?" said Horrocks, standing with the door half open.

Raut stepped towards him. "Better say good-bye to Mrs.
Horrocks," said the ironmaster, even more grimly quiet in his tone
than before.

Raut started and turned. "Good-evening, Mrs. Horrocks," he
said, and their hands touched.

Horrocks held the door open with a ceremonial politeness
unusual in him towards men. Raut went out, and then, after a
wordless look at her, her husband followed. S