y have to."

"Surely you must know from your lawyer's letter whether it will be
necessary or not."

"I expect it will be necessary."

He turned slowly away from her and went to the window, where he stood
for a moment, apparently looking out. She sat down on the sofa and
glanced at the clock. How were they to get through a long evening
together? She wished she could bring about a crisis in their relations
abruptly. Dion turned round. He had his hands in his pockets.

"I wish you'd let me look at that lawyer's letter," he said.

"It wouldn't interest you."

"If it's about money matters I might be able to help you. You know they
used to be my job. Even now anything to do with investments----"

"Oh, I won't bother you," she said coolly. "I always do business through
some one I can pay."

"Well, you can pay me."

"No, I can't."

"But I say you can."

"How?" she said.

And instantly she regretted having asked the question.

He looked at her in silence for a minute, then he said:

"By sticking always to me, by proving yourself loyal."

Her mouth twitched. The intense irony in the last word made her feel
inclined to laugh hysterically.

"But you don't always behave in such a way as to make me feel loyal,"
she said, controlling herself.

"I'm going to try to be more clever with you in the future."

She got up abruptly.

"I didn't expect you quite so early, and I've got a letter to write to
Jimmy--"

"And a letter to your lawyer!" he interrupted.

"No, that can wait till to-morrow. I must think things over. But I must
write to Jimmy now."

"Give him a kind message from me."

"What will you do while I am writing?"

"I'll sit here."

"But do something! Why not read your letters?"

"Yes, I may as well look at them. There was quite a collection waiting
for me at the British Post Office. I haven't been there for months."

"Why don't you go more regularly?"

"Because I've done with the past!" he exclaimed, with sudden savagery.
"And letters from home only rake it up."

She looked at him narrowly.

"But have we ever done with the past?" she said, with her eyes upon him.
"If we think so isn't that a stupidity on our part?"

"You're talking like a parson!"

"Even a parson may hit upon a truth now and then."

"It depends upon oneself. I say I have done with the past."

"And yet you're afraid to read letters from England."

"I'm not."

"And you never go to England."

"There's nothing to pre