sinking within
her bosom the stairs might have been the deck of a steamer pitching in
a heavy sea.

She thought--

"Here is the Louis to whom I am indifferent. There is nothing between
us, really. But shall I have strength to open the door to him?"

She opened the door, with the feeling that the act was tremendous and
irrevocable.

The street, in the Sabbatic sunshine, was as calm as at midnight.
Louis Fores, stiff and constrained, stood strangely against the
background of it. The unusualness of his demeanour, which was plain to
the merest glance, increased Rachel's agitation. It appeared to Rachel
that the two of them faced each other like wary enemies. She tried to
examine his face in the light of Mrs. Maldon's warning, as though it
were the face of a stranger; but without much success.

"Is auntie well enough for me to see her?" asked Louis, without
greeting or preliminary of any sort. His voice was imperfectly under
control.

Rachel replied curtly--

"I dare say she is."

To herself she said--

"Of course if he's going to sulk about last night--well, he must sulk.
Really and truly he got much less than he deserved. He had no business
at all to have suggested me going to the cinematograph with him. The
longer he sulks the better I shall be pleased."

And in fact she was relieved at his sullenness. She tossed her proud
head, but with primness. And she fervently credited to the full Mrs.
Maldon's solemn insinuations against the disturber.

Louis hesitated a second, then stepped in. Rachel marched
processionally upstairs, and with the detachment of a footman
announced to Mrs. Maldon that Mr. Fores waited below. "Oh, please
bring him up," said Mrs. Maldon, with a mild and casual benevolence
that surprised the girl; for Rachel, in the righteous ferocity of
her years, vaguely thought that an adverse moral verdict ought to be
swiftly followed by something in the nature of annihilation.

"Will you please come up," she invited Louis, from the head of the
stairs, adding privately--"I can be as stiff as you can--and stiffer.
How mistaken I was in you!"

She preceded him into the bedroom, and then with ostentatious
formality left aunt and nephew together. Nobody should ever say any
more that she encouraged the attentions of Louis Fores.

"What is the matter, dear?" Mrs. Maldon inquired from her bed,
perceiving the signs of emotion on Louis' face.

"Has Mr. Batchgrew been here yet?" Louis demanded.

"No. I