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Ide, leaning with folded arms against the windowframe, watched her in silence as she moved restlessly about the room, gathering together some scattered books and tossing a handful of torn letters into the paperbasket. When she ceased, he rejoined: “All you say is based on preconceived theories. Why didn’t you put them to the test by coming down to meet your old friends? Don’t you see the inference they would naturally draw from your hiding yourself when they arrived? It looked as though you were afraid of them–or as though you hadn’t forgiven them. Either way, you put them in the wrong instead of waiting to let them put you in the right. If Leila had buried herself in a desert do you suppose society would have gone to fetch her out? You say you were afraid for Leila and that she was afraid for you. Don’t you see what all these complications of feeling mean? Simply that you were too nervous at the moment to let things happen naturally, just as you’re too nervous now to judge them rationally.” He paused and turned his eyes to her face. “Don’t try to just yet. Give yourself a little more time. Give me a little more time. I’ve always known it would take time.”

He moved nearer, and she let him have her hand.

With the grave kindness of his face so close above her she felt like a child roused out of frightened dreams and finding a light in the room.

“Perhaps you’re right–” she heard herself begin; then something within her clutched her back, and her hand fell away from him.

“I know I’m right: trust me,” he urged. “We’ll talk of this in Florence soon.”

She stood before him, feeling with despair his kindness, his patience and his unreality. Everything he said seemed like a painted gauze let down between herself and the real facts of life; and a sudden desire seized her to tear the gauze into shreds.

She drew back and looked at him with a smile of superficial reassurance. “You are right–about not talking any longer now. I’m nervous and tired, and it would do no good. I brood over things too much. As you say, I must try not to shrink from people.” She turned away and glanced at the clock. “Why, it’s only ten! If I send you off I shall begin to brood again; and if you stay we shall go on talking about the same thing. Why shouldn’t we go down and see Margaret Wynn for half an hour?”

She spoke lightly and rapidly, her brilliant eyes on his face. As she watched him, she saw it change, as if her smile had thrown a too vivid light upon it.

“Oh, no–not to-night!” he exclaimed.

“Not to-night? Why, what other night have I, when I’m off at dawn? Besides, I want to show you at once that I mean to be more sensible–that I’m not going to be afraid of people any more. And I should really like another glimpse of little Charlotte.” He stood before her, his hand in his beard, with the gesture he had in moments of perplexity. “Come!” she ordered him gaily, turning to the door.

He followed her and laid his hand on her arm. “Don’t you think–hadn’t you better let me go first and see? They told me they’d had a tiring day at the dressmaker’s* I daresay they have gone to bed.”

“But you said they’d a young man of Charlotte’s dining with them. Surely he wouldn’t have left by ten? At any rate, I’ll go down with you and see. It takes so long if one “ends a servant first” She put him gently aside, and then paused as a new thought struck her. “Or wait; my maid’s in the next room. I’ll tell her to go and ask if Margaret will receive me. Yes, that’s much the best way.”

She turned back and went toward the door that led to her bedroom; but before she could open it she felt Ide’s quick touch again.

“I believe–I remember now–Charlotte’s young man was suggesting that they should all go out–to a musichall or something of the sort. I’m sure–I’m positively sure that you won’t find them.”

Her hand dropped from the door, his dropped from her arm, and as they drew back and faced each other she saw the blood rise slowly through his sallow skin, redden his neck and ears, encroach upon the edges of his beard, and settle in dull patches under his kind troubled eyes. She had seen the same blush on another face, and the same impulse of compassion she had then felt made her turn her gaze away again.

A knock on the door broke the silence, and a porter put his head’ into the room.

“It’s only just to know how many pieces there’ll be to go down to the steamer in the morning.”

With the words she felt that the veil of painted gauze was torn in tatters, and that she was moving again among the grim edges of reality.

“Oh, dear,” she exclaimed, “I never can remember! Wait a minute; I shall have to ask my maid.”

She opened her bedroom door and called out: “Annette!”