She had an absurd feeling of curiosity about his first words to her. In her ideal dialogue with him he struck an attitude of surprise and bewilderment and ejaculated, after the manner of the hero in a melodrama: “What?--_You_!--_You_! Is it really _you_?” Of course he did nothing like that. She might have expected her fancied conversation to go all wrong from the start. He slowly and cautiously held out his right hand, and smiled a careful, quizzical smile. And his first words were: “How are you?” “Very well,” she replied mechanically. There was a pause, after which he said: “Won’t you sit down?” “Thank you,” she replied, and occupied the other armchair. He still remained standing and smoking. “I suppose,” he said reflectively, “you got the address from the Directory?” “No,” she replied nonchalantly, “it was quite by accident. I am one of the assistants in the music department of Ryder and Sons, and you yourself gave me your address over the telephone last Monday.” “What a startling coincidence!” he muttered, as if by way of comment to himself. Pause.... “So,” he went on meditatively, “you were the young lady who knew the Bach double-piano concerto from memory! Curious! ... I thought it was remarkable, and the next time I was in town I intended coming up to Ryder’s to see who you were.... Perhaps it is well I didn’t.... We might have startled each other.” “We might,” she said quietly. Long pause.... “I don’t remember your ever playing the concerto when I knew you,” he resumed, still in the rôle of a somewhat curious spectator. “I never taught it you, did I?” “No,” she answered. “I learnt it myself.” And there was just a momentary gleam of fire within at that remark. As much as to say: “Don’t think I am not capable of doing _some_ things myself.” “Do you know all of it?” he asked. “I did--but I don’t know if I remember it all now.” He tapped his pipe on the mantelpiece. “I wish you’d play it for me,” he said, slowly and still meditatively, “I should like very much to hear it ... and besides ... it would ... give me time to think....” “To think what?” she put in sharply. He sat down, filled his pipe afresh and lit it, saying as he did so: “Well--to think--one of the things, at any rate--why you have come.” There was something in the tone of that last remark of his which stung her to the retort: “So you think it is possible for me to go to the piano and play a Bach concerto while you sit coolly down to wonder why I have come?” “Well,” he said, suddenly and with emphasis, “why _have_ you come?” “You said if I was ever over in the States I was to come and see you. I naturally expected that the invitation would extend to when you returned to England.” “Did it not occur to you,” he remarked slowly, “that when I returned from the States I should have sent you my address if I had desired to see you?” “Of course,” she interposed neatly, “as it happens, I know that you never went to America at all.”