Dorothy was gazing into the fire before which the youngest Bit had had his bath. Close to her own chair was drawn the chair that had evidently been lately occupied by Stan. The infant Bit's cot was in a corner of the room. At first Dorothy did not look up from the fire. Probably she supposed the person who was looking at her from the doorway to be Stan. But as that person neither spoke nor advanced, she turned her head. The next moment a curious little sound had come from her lips. You see, in the first place, she had expected nobody less, and in the second place, she wholeheartedly shared many of her worldly old aunt's prejudices, among which was the monstrous one that established a connexion between recently-bibbed politicians in this country and revolver shots in another. And there was no doubt whatever that her presentable but brainless young husband had fostered this fallacious conviction. He might even have gone so far as to say that Amory herself was not altogether unresponsible.... And that, too, in a sense, was what Amory had come for. The eyes of the two women met, Amory's at the door, Dorothy's startled ones looking over her shoulder; blue ones and shallow brook-brown ones; and then Dorothy half rose. But whatever the first expression of her face had been, it hardly lasted for a quarter of an instant. Alarm instantly took its place. She had begun to get up as a person gets up who would ask another person what he is doing there. Now it was as if, though she did not yet know what it was, there was something to be done, something practical and with the hands, without a moment's delay. "What's the matter?" she cried. "Cried" is written, but her exclamation actually gained in emphasis from the fact that, not to wake the Bit, she voiced it in a whisper. For a moment Amory wondered why she should speak like that. Then it occurred to her that the face of a person under spinal anaesthesia might in itself be a reason. She had forgotten her face. "May I come in?" she asked. She took Dorothy's "Shut the door--and speak low, please--what do you want?" as an intimation that she might. Amory entered. But she was not asked to sit down. The man who runs with a fire-call, or fetches a doctor in the night, is not asked to sit down, and some urgency of that kind appeared to be Dorothy's conception of Amory's visit. "What do you want?" she demanded again. Amory herself felt foolish at her own reply. It was so futile, so piteous, so true. She stood as helpless as a Bit before Dorothy. "I--I don't know," she said. "What's the matter? What are you looking like that for? Has anything happened to Cosimo?" "No. No. No. He's coming home. No. Nothing's happened." "Can I be of use to you?" She was prepared to be that. "No--yes--I don't know----" Dorothy's eyes had hardened a little.--"_Do_ you want something--and if you don't--_had_ you to come--to-night?" Amory spoke quite quickly and eagerly.