ll. From where he sat Anthony caught the gleam of Juliet's crisp
linen skirt. Presently she came slowly down. As she turned upon the
landing she met Anthony's eyes looking up. In a fashion quite unusual to
the straightforward gaze of his friend her eyes fell. He saw that her
cheeks were pale. He rose to meet her.

"Come and rest," he said. "You are tired. You have worked too hard. Such a
helper a man never had before. And you have made a wonderful success.
Juliet, I can't thank you. It's beyond that."

But she would not be led to the cosy corner by the window. She found
something needing her attention in the curtain of the bookcase in the
dimmest corner of the room, and began solicitously to pull it in various
ways, as if there were something wrong with it. He watched her, standing
with his arm on the high chimney-piece.

"I think you enjoyed it just a little bit yourself, though," he observed.
"Didn't you, chum?"

"Yes, indeed," said Juliet.

Her back was toward him, her head bent down, but his quick ear detected a
peculiar quality in her voice. He questioned her again hurriedly.

"You're not sorry you did it?"

"Oh, no," said Juliet.

Now there is not much in two such simple replies as these to indicate the
state of one's mind and heart; but when a girl has been crying stormily
and uninterruptedly for a half-hour, and is only not crying still because
she is holding back the torrent of her unhappiness by sheer force of will,
it is radically impossible to say so much as four words in a perfectly
natural way. Anthony understood in a breath that the unfamiliar note in
his friend's voice was that of tears. And, strange to say, into his face
there flashed a look of triumph. But he only said very gently:

"Come here a minute--will you, Juliet?"

She bent lower over the curtain. Then she stood up, without looking at
him, and moved toward the door.

"I believe I'm rather tired," she said in a low tone. "It has been so warm
all day, and I--I have a headache."

In three steps he came after her, stopping her with his hand grasping hers
as she would have left the room.

"Come back--please," he urged. "Your aunt is asleep out there, I think. I
wanted to go over the house once more with you, if you would. But you're
too tired for that. Just come back and sit down in this nook of yours, and
let's talk a little."

She could not well refuse, and he put her into a nest of cushions,
arranging them carefully behind her ba