me to sit down.

The studio was lit up with electric light.

"There's too much light," she said. "Don't move. I'll do it."

She went over to the door, and turned out two burners, leaving only one
alight.

"Isn't that ever so much better?" she said, coming to sit down near
Claude.

"Well, perhaps it is."

"Cosier, more intime."

She sat down with a little sigh.

"I'm going to have a cigarette."

She drew out a thin silver case, opened it.

"A teeny Russian one."

Claude struck a match. She put the cigarette between her lips, and
leaned forward to the tiny flame.

"That's it."

She sighed.

After a moment of silence she said:

"I'm glad you couldn't work in the little room. If you had been able to
we should never have had this."

"We!" thought Claude.

"And," she continued, "I feel this is the beginning of great things for
you. I feel as if, without meaning to, I'd taken you away from your
path, as if now I understood better. But I don't think it was quite my
fault if I didn't understand. Claudie, do you know you're terribly
reserved?"

"Am I?" he said.

He shifted in his chair, took the cigar out of his mouth, and put it
back again.

"Well, aren't you? Two whole months, and you never told me you couldn't
work."

"I hated to, after you'd taken so much trouble with that room."

"I know. But, still, directly you did tell me, I perfectly understood.
I"--she spoke with distinct pressure--"I am a wife who can understand.
Don't you remember that night at Jacques Sennier's opera?"

"Yes."

"Didn't I understand then? At the end when they were all applauding?
I've got your letter, the letter you wrote that night. I shall always
keep it. Such a burning letter, saying I had inspired you, that my love
and belief had made you feel as if you could do something great if you
changed your life, if you lived with me. You remember?"

"Yes, Charmian, of course I remember."

Claude strove with all his might to speak warmly, impetuously, to get
back somehow the warmth, the impulse that had driven him to write that
letter. But he remembered, too, his terrible desire to get that letter
back out of the box. And he felt guilty. He was glad just then that
Charmian had turned out those two burners.

"In these months I think we seem to have got away from that letter, from
that night."

Claude became cold. Dread overtook him. Had she detected his lack of
love? Was she going to tax him with it?

"Oh, surely no