good,'
he added, 'and you'll have to excuse the cup. And there's no cream.'

'I'll excuse anything,' said the lady, 'I'm so glad to be here!'

'Well, I'm glad to see you too,' said Mr. Van Torp, giving her the
cup. 'Crackers? I'll see if there're any in the cupboard. I forgot.'

He went to the corner again and found a small tin of biscuits, which
he opened and examined under gaslight.

'Mouldy,' he observed. 'Weevils in them, too. Sorry. Does it matter
much?'

'Nothing matters,' answered the lady, sweet and low. 'But why do you
put them away if they are bad? It would be better to burn them and be
done with it.'

He was taking the box back to the cupboard.

'I suppose you're right,' he said reluctantly. 'But it always seems
wicked to burn bread, doesn't it?'

'Not when it's weevilly,' replied the thoroughbred, after sipping the
hot tea.

He emptied the contents of the tin upon the coal fire, and the room
presently began to smell of mouldy toast.

'Besides,' he said, 'it's cruel to burn weevils, I suppose. If I'd
thought of that, I'd have left them alone. It's too late now. They're
done for, poor beasts! I'm sorry. I don't like to kill things.'

He stared thoughtfully at the already charred remains of the
holocaust, and shook his head a little. The lady sipped her tea and
looked at him quietly, perhaps affectionately, but he did not see her.

'You think I'm rather silly sometimes, don't you?' he asked, still
gazing at the fire.

'No,' she answered at once. 'It's never silly to be kind, even to
weevils.'

'Thank you for thinking so,' said Mr. Van Torp, in an oddly humble
tone, and he began to drink his own tea.

If Margaret Donne could have suddenly found herself perched among the
chimney-pots on the opposite roof, and if she had then looked at his
face through the window, she would have wondered why she had ever felt
a perfectly irrational terror of him. It was quite plain that the lady
in black velvet had no such impression.

'You need not be so meek,' she said, smiling.

She did not laugh often, but sometimes there was a ripple in her fresh
voice that would turn a man's head. Mr. Van Torp looked at her in a
rather dull way.

'I believe I feel meek when I'm with you. Especially just now.'

He swallowed the rest of his tea at a gulp, set the cup on the table,
and folded his hands loosely together, his elbows resting on his
knees; in this attitude he leaned forward and looked at the burning
coals