d not wait long. Paliser, with the pretence of a knock and a smile
on his lips walked in--but not far. That frock, that bundle, the sight
of her there, sufficed. He knew. With an awkwardness that was unusual
with him, he closed the door and twisted his hat. The smile had gone
from his lips. They were dry.

Then as he looked at her and she looked at him--and with what a
look!--words seemed such poor things. It was as though already
everything had been said, as perhaps in the silent temples of their
being, everything, accusations, recriminations, all the futilities of
speech had been uttered, impotently, a moment since. A moment earlier
she had said her say. As he looked at her he knew that she had and knew
too, that before he entered the room, already she had heard his replies.

The consciousness of this, equally shared by both, was so intense that,
for a second, Cassy felt that everything happening then had happened
ages ago, that she was taking part in a drama rehearsed on a stage that
memory cannot reconstruct but which stood, and, it may be, still stands,
back of those doors that close behind our birth.

The hallucination, if it be one, and which, given certain crises of the
emotions, is common enough, vanished abruptly as it had come. But two
seconds had gone since Paliser entered the room, yet, in those seconds,
both recognised that eternity had begun between them.

With his hat, a hat studiously selected, made to order, Paliser motioned
and with the same studiousness, selecting a platitude, he produced it.
"I was going to take you out."

"After taking me in," Cassy in reviewing the situation subsequently
commented. But at the time she said nothing. She merely looked. Her rage
was gone, her anger spent. Only disgust remained. It was that which her
face expressed. It was withering.

Paliser, steadying himself and, as was perhaps only natural, hedging
still, resumed: "But apparently you have other intentions."

What a cad that blackguard is! thought Cassy who still said nothing.

"May I ask what they are?"

Cassy threw up her chin. "My intentions are to leave----"

"But why?"

"Don't presume to interrupt me. My intentions are to leave your
assignation-house and have you horsewhipped."

Paliser had been served with strong drink before, but none ever as
strong as that. It steadied him. He had expected that when it got to
her, as eventually it must, there would be the passionate upbraidings,
the burst of s