"Are you going out before lunch?" she asked, because she knew Mrs. Faraday hated to have him miss his meals. "Yes, I can't wait, but I'll light a cigar." He took out one of the long slender cigars he preferred, and stopped in front of her while she struck a match and held her hand by the flame. "That's a suitable young man, Dorinda," he remarked irrelevantly, with his whimsical smile. "Young man?" She glanced up inquiringly. Though her sense of humour had developed almost morbidly, she had discovered that it was of a wilder variety than Doctor Faraday's. "I think, my dear girl," he explained, "that you could go farther and do worse than take Richard. If I'm not mistaken, he has a future before him." She laughed. "There wouldn't be much for me in that sort of future." "But there might be in the results." Then he grew serious. "He is interested in you, and I hope something will come of it." A pricking sensation in her nerves made her start away from him. "Don't," she said sharply. "I've finished with all that sort of thing." "Not for good. You are too young." "Yes, for good. I can't explain what I mean, but the very thought of that makes me--well, sick all over." Her face had gone white, and struck by the change, he looked at her closely. "Some women," he said, "are affected that way by a shock." "You mean by a blow on the head?" "No, I don't mean a physical blow. I mean an emotional shock. Such a thing may produce a nervous revulsion." "Well, that has happened to me." He laid his hand on her shoulder. "It will pass probably. You are handsomer than ever. It is natural that you should need love." A wave of aversion swept over her face. "But 'I don't need it. I am through with all that." He looked at her gravely. "And you will fill your life--with what?" She laughed derisively. How little men knew! "With something better than broomsedge. That's the first thing that puts out on barren soil, just broomsedge. Then that goes and pines come to stay--pines and life-everlasting. You won't understand," she explained lightly. "I was talking to Doctor Burch about Pedlar's Mill just before you came in, and I told him we had to get our living from barren ground." He patted her shoulder. "Well, I hope that, too, will pass," he answered as he turned to put on his overcoat. She remembered his words the next day while she sat in the concert hall waiting for the music to begin. At first she had tried to make out the names on the programme, desisting presently because they confused her. Beethoven. Bach. Chopin. She went over the others again, stumbling because she could make nothing of the syllables. A-p-p-a-s-s-i-o-n-a-t-a. What did the strange word mean? P-a-t-h-é-tique--that she could dimly grasp. Sonata? Nocturne? What did the strange words mean? How could she be expected to know she had never heard them before?