t himself back
to the actual conversation.

"You mean to tell me," he said, "that if every time I remember, when I
am dwelling upon the subject which pains me, that I must make my
thoughts turn to other things which give me pleasure, that gradually the
new thoughts will banish the old?"

"Of course, I mean that," Moravia told him. "Everything comes in
cycles; that is why people get into habits. You just try, Henry; you can
cure the habit of pain as easily as you can cure any habit. It is all a
question of will."

She saw that she had created interest in his eyes, and rejoiced. That
crisis had passed! and it would be safe to go on.

"I shall not get him to kiss me to-night, after all," she decided to
herself. "If I did, he would probably feel annoyed to-morrow, with some
ridiculous sense of a too sudden disloyalty to Sabine's memory--and he
might be huffed with himself, too, thinking he had given way; it might
wound his vanity. I shall just draw him right out and make him want to
kiss me, but not consciously--and then it will be safe when he is at
that pitch to let him go off to bed."

This plan she proceeded to put into practice. She exploited the subject
they had been talking of to its length, and aroused a sharp discussion
and argument--while she took care to place herself in the most alluring
attitudes as close to Henry as she possibly could be, while maintaining
a basis of frank friendship, and then she changed the current by getting
him to explain to her exactly what he had done about Michael, and how
they should arrange the meeting between the two, putting into her
eagerness all the sparkle that she would have used in collaborating with
him over the placing of the presents upon a Christmas tree--until, at
last, Henry began to take some sort of pride in the thing itself.

"I want you to let Sabine think you are just going to forgive her for
her deception, but intend her to keep her word to you; and then you can
take Mr. Arranstoun up to her sitting-room when you have brought him
from the Pere Anselme's--and just push him in and let them explain
matters themselves. Won't it be a moment for them both!"

Henry writhed.

"Yes," he gasped, "a great moment."

"And you are not going to care one bit, Henry," Moravia went on, with
authority. "I tell you, you are not."

Then, having made all clear as to their joint action upon the morrow,
she spent the last half hour before they parted in instilling into his
spi