her walk in that little drab street. She threaded two
more turnings, and from the last corner he saw her enter her block of
flats. To make sure of her now, he ran those few paces, hurried up the
stairs, and caught her standing at her door. He heard the latchkey in
the lock, and reached her side just as she turned round, startled, in the
open doorway.

"Don't be alarmed," he said, breathless. "I happened to see you. Let me
come in a minute."

She had put her hand up to her breast, her face was colourless, her eyes
widened by alarm. Then seeming to master herself, she inclined her head,
and said: "Very well."

Soames closed the door. He, too, had need to recover, and when she had
passed into the sitting-room, waited a full minute, taking deep breaths
to still the beating of his heart. At this moment, so fraught with the
future, to take out that morocco case seemed crude. Yet, not to take it
out left him there before her with no preliminary excuse for coming. And
in this dilemma he was seized with impatience at all this paraphernalia
of excuse and justification. This was a scene--it could be nothing else,
and he must face it. He heard her voice, uncomfortably, pathetically
soft:

"Why have you come again? Didn't you understand that I would rather you
did not?"

He noticed her clothes--a dark brown velvet corduroy, a sable boa, a
small round toque of the same. They suited her admirably. She had money
to spare for dress, evidently! He said abruptly:

"It's your birthday. I brought you this," and he held out to her the
green morocco case.

"Oh! No-no!"

Soames pressed the clasp; the seven stones gleamed out on the pale grey
velvet.

"Why not?" he said. "Just as a sign that you don't bear me ill-feeling
any longer."

"I couldn't."

Soames took it out of the case.

"Let me just see how it looks."

She shrank back.

He followed, thrusting his hand with the brooch in it against the front
of her dress. She shrank again.

Soames dropped his hand.

"Irene," he said, "let bygones be bygones. If I can, surely you might.
Let's begin again, as if nothing had been. Won't you?" His voice was
wistful, and his eyes, resting on her face, had in them a sort of
supplication.

She, who was standing literally with her back against the wall, gave a
little gulp, and that was all her answer. Soames went on:

"Can you really want to live all your days half-dead in this little hole?
Come back to me, an