s felt in his hip pocket for his reserve cigarette-case.

And Rachel immediately said, with her back to him--

"Have you really got a revolver, or were you teasing--just now in the
parlour?"

It was then that he perceived a small unframed mirror, hung at the
height of her face on the broad, central, perpendicular bar of the
old-fashioned window-frame. Through this mirror the chit--so he named
her in his mind at the instant--had been surveying him!

"Yes," he said, producing the second cigarette-case, "I was only
teasing." He lit a fresh cigarette from the end of the previous one.

"Well," she said, "you did frighten Mrs. Maldon. I was so sorry for
her."

"And what about you? Weren't you frightened?"

"Oh no! I wasn't frightened. I guessed, somehow, you were only
teasing."

"Well, I just wasn't teasing, then!" said Louis, triumphantly yet with
benevolence. And he drew a revolver from his pocket.

She turned her head now, and glanced neutrally at the incontestable
revolver for a second. But she made no remark whatever, unless the
pouting of her tightly shut lips and a mysterious smile amounted to a
remark.

Louis adopted an indifferent tone--

"Strange that the old lady should be so nervous just to-night--isn't
it?--seeing these burglars have been knocking about for over a
fortnight. Is this the first time she's got excited about it?"

"Yes, I think it is," said Rachel faintly, as it were submissively,
with no sign of irritation against him.

With their air of worldliness and mature wisdom they twittered on like
a couple of sparrows--inconsequently, capriciously; and nothing that
they said had the slightest originality, weight, or importance. But
they both thought that their conversation was full of significance;
which it was, though they could not explain it to themselves. What
they happened to say did not matter in the least. If they had recited
the Koran to each other the inexplicable significance of their words
would have been the same.

Rachel faced him again, leaning her hands behind her on the table, and
said with the most enchanting, persuasive friendliness--

"I wasn't frightened--truly! I don't know why I looked as though I
was."

"You mean about the revolver--in the sitting-room?" He jumped nimbly
back after her to the revolver question.

"Yes. Because I'm quite used to revolvers, you know. My brother had
one. Only his was a Colt--one of those long things."

"Your brother, eh?"

"Yes.