was shown into the
little study-drawing-room with the stepped floor, which had been so
largely the scene of his life with Euphemia, and he was left there for
the better part of a quarter of an hour before his hostess appeared.

The room had been changed very little. Euphemia's solitary rose had
gone, and instead there were several bowls of beaten silver scattered
about, each filled with great chrysanthemums from London. Sir Isaac's
jackdaw acquisitiveness had also overcrowded the corner beyond the
fireplace with a very fine and genuine Queen Anne cabinet; there were a
novel by Elizabeth Robins and two or three feminist and socialist works
lying on the table which would certainly not have been visible, though
they might have been in the house, during the Brumley regime. Otherwise
things were very much as they always had been.

A room like this, thought Mr. Brumley among much other mental driftage,
is like a heart,--so long as it exists it must be furnished and
tenanted. No matter what has been, however bright and sweet and tender,
the spaces still cry aloud to be filled again. The very essence of life
is its insatiability. How complete all this had seemed in the moment
when first he and Euphemia had arranged it. And indeed how complete life
had seemed altogether at seven-and-twenty. Every year since then he had
been learning--or at any rate unlearning. Until at last he was beginning
to realize he had still everything to learn....

The door opened and the tall dark figure of Lady Harman stood for a
moment in the doorway before she stepped down into the room.

She had always the same effect upon him, the effect of being suddenly
remembered. When he was away from her he was always sure that she was a
beautiful woman, and when he saw her again he was always astonished to
see how little he had borne her beauty in mind. For a moment they
regarded one another silently. Then she closed the door behind her and
came towards him.

All Mr. Brumley's philosophizing had vanished at the sight of her. His
spirit was reborn within him. He thought of her and of his effect upon
her, vividly, and of nothing else in the world.

She was paler he thought beneath her dusky hair, a little thinner and
graver....

There was something in her manner as she advanced towards him that told
him he mattered to her, that his coming there was something that moved
her imagination as well as his own. With an almost impulsive movement
she held out bo