y my books?"

A warm and careless voice spoke behind him. She had come in and was
standing close to him, dressed in white, with a black hat, and holding a
white parasol in her hand. In the sunshine she looked even fairer than
by night. Her pale but gleaming hair was covered by a thin veil, which
she kept down as she greeted Nigel.

"Not judging," he said, as he held her hand for a moment. "Guessing,
perhaps, or guessing at."

"Which is it? 'The Scarlet Letter'! I got it a year ago. I read it. And
when I had read it, I sent it to be bound in white."

"Why was that?"

"'Though your sin shall be as scarlet,'" she quoted.

He was silent, looking at her.

"Let us have tea."

As she spoke, she went, with her slow and careless walk which Isaacson
had noticed, towards the fireplace, and touched the electric bell. Then
she sat down on a sofa close to the cage of the canary-birds, and with
her back to the light.

"I suppose you are fearfully busy with engagements," she continued, as
he came to sit down near her. "Most people are, at this time of year.
One ought to be truly grateful for even five minutes of anybody's time.
I remember, ages ago, when I was one of the busy ones, I used to expect
almost servile thankfulness for any little minute I doled out. How
things change!"

She did not sigh, but laughed, and, without giving him time to speak,
added:

"Which of my other books did you look at?"

"I saw you had Maspero."

"Oh, I got that simply because I had met you. It turned my mind towards
Egypt, which I have never seen, although I've yachted all over the
place. Last night, after we had said good night, I couldn't sleep; so I
sat here and read Maspero for a while, and thought of your Egyptian
life. I didn't mean to be impertinent. One has to think of something."

"Impertinent!"

Her tone, though light, had surely been coloured with apology.

"Well, people are so funny--now. I remember the time when lots of them
were foolish in the opposite way. If I thought of them, they seemed to
take it as an honour. But then I wasn't thirty-eight, and I was in
society."

The German waiter came in with tea. When he had arranged it and gone
out, Nigel said, with a certain diffidence:

"I wonder you don't live in the country."

"I know what you mean. But you're wrong. One feels even more out of it
there."

She gave him his cup gently, with a movement that implied care for his
comfort, almost a thoughtful, happy servic