ed away with a displeased air.

'Am I just or not?' Margaret asked, almost sternly.

'Yes, you are just,' he said, for it was impossible not to reply.

'And do you think it is just to me to change your manner altogether,
without giving me a reason? I don't!'

'You will force me to say something I would rather not say.'

'That is what I am trying to do,' Margaret retorted.

'Since you insist on knowing the truth,' answered Lushington, yielding
to what was very like necessity, 'I think you are very much changed
since I saw you last. You do not seem to me the same person.'

For a moment Margaret looked at him with something like wonder, and
her lips parted, though she said nothing. Then they met again and shut
very tight, while her brown eyes darkened till they looked almost
black; she turned a shade paler, too, and there was something almost
tragic in her face.

'I'm sorry,' Lushington said, watching her, 'but you made me tell
you.'

'Yes,' she answered slowly. 'I made you tell me, and I'm glad I did.
So I have changed as much as that, have I? In two years!'

She folded her hands on the little shelf of the empty music desk, bent
far forwards and looked down between the polished wooden bars at the
strings below, as if she were suddenly interested in the mechanism of
the piano.

Lushington turned his eyes to the darkening windows, and both sat thus
in silence for some time.

'Yes,' she repeated at last, 'I'm glad I made you tell me. It explains
everything very well.'

Still Lushington said nothing, and she was still examining the
strings. Her right hand stole to the keys, and she pressed down one
note so gently that it did not strike; she watched the little hammer
that rose till it touched the string and then fell back into its
place.

'You said I should change--I remember your words.' Her voice was quiet
and thoughtful, whatever she felt. 'I suppose there is something about
me now that grates on your nerves.'

There was no resentment in her tone, nor the least intonation of
sarcasm. But Lushington said nothing; he was thinking of the time when
he had thought her an ideal of refined girlhood, and had believed in
his heart that she could never stand the life of the stage, and would
surely give it up in sheer disgust, no matter how successful she might
be. Yet now, she did not even seem offended by what he had told her.
So much the better, he thought; for he was far too truthful to take
back one word in or