There was no particular business reason why he should see her, yet for several nights after his return to Upton Rising she expected him to come. She laid in a stock of his favourite cigarettes: she diligently learned a little known and mathematical work of Bach because she knew he would appreciate it. But he did not come. Then she had a spell of concerts which kept her in town until nearly midnight: he did not come to see her after the performance, as he sometimes did, so that she did not know if he had been among the audience or not. She knew that he had returned from Cambridge, and she knew that an abstruse work on sociology was occupying a good deal of his time and attention. Yet it seemed strange that he did not visit her. Their farewell on Cambridge platform was already past history, and she sometimes found it hard to believe it had taken place at all. She wanted further proof that it was no delusion. She felt that every day made that incident more isolated, more inconsistent, more meaningless. And in another sense every day was adding to its tremendous significance. A fortnight passed and still he did not come. She did not want to go and see him. She wanted him to come and see her. She made a vow: I am not going to see him; I am going to wait till he comes to see me: if he doesn’t want to, he needn’t. And she was glad when a concert or other engagement kept her busy in the evenings, for the temptation to break her vow was strong if she were alone at “Elm Cottage.” On Christmas Day the temptation was overmastering. An offer from a Scotch concert agency had come by post that morning, and she found it easy to persuade herself that she had to visit him to talk it over. Snow was falling through the skeleton trees on the Ridgeway as she approached “Claremont.” Through the window of the front room she could catch the glow of leaping flames. That indicated that he was at home. He had no relatives and no friends of the kind that would share Christmas Day with him. Besides, he was quite impervious to the Christmas type of sentimentality. Yet possibly he would be pleased to see her. She found him sitting on the club-fender with the fire behind him. He was reading long proof-slips. As she entered he merely glanced up casually. “Come in,” he drawled, and went on correcting until he had finished the slip. There are no words to convey how deeply that annoyed her. “Well,” he began, when the last marginal correction had been inserted, “and how are you getting on?” “All right,” she asserted, with some pique. Then, in a spitefully troubled tone: “What have you been doing with yourself since you came back from Cambridge?” He pointed to the litter of proof-slips on the floor. “Working,” he replied. “I half expected you’d come and see me,” she remarked tentatively. “So did I,” he replied quietly, “but I didn’t after all....” “What d’you mean?” “I mean I half thought I might visit you. I really didn’t know....” “I suppose you didn’t want to.”