He paused. She remained silent and looked at his hands and then at his eyelids and eyebrows. And there was a terrible coldness in her scrutiny, which she did not show to him, but of which she was painfully aware. His nails were not flat, but were noticeably curved. For a moment the thought in her mind was simply, “Could I live with those nails?” She hated herself for that thought; she despised herself for it; she considered herself almost inhuman and certainly despicable, and she recalled swiftly what Seymour was, the essential beauty and fineness of his character, his truth, his touching faithfulness. And almost simultaneously she thought, “Why do old men get those terribly bushy eyebrows, like thickets?” “Perhaps I think too much,” she said. “Living alone, one thinks--and thinks. You have so much to do and I so little.” “Sometimes I think of retiring,” he said. “From the court?” “Yes.” “Oh, but they would never let you!” “My place could be filled easily enough.” “Oh, no, it couldn’t.” And she added, leaning forward now, and looking at him differently: “Don’t you ever realize how rare you are, Seymour? There is scarcely anyone left like you, and yet you are not old-fashioned. Do you know that I have never yet met a man who really was a man--” “Now, now, Adela!” “No, I will say it! I have never met a real man who, knowing you, didn’t think you were rare. They wouldn’t let you go. Besides, what would you retire to?” Again she looked at him with a scrutiny which she felt to be morally cruel. She could not refrain from it just then. It seemed to come inevitably from her own misery and almost desperation. At one moment she felt a rush of tenderness for him, at another an almost stony hardness. “Ah--that’s just it! I dare say it will be better to die in harness.” “Die!” she said, as if startled. At that moment the thought assailed her, “If Seymour were suddenly to die!” There would be a terrible gap in her life. Her loneliness then would be horrible indeed unless--she pulled herself up with a sort of fierce mental violence. “I won’t! I won’t!” she cried out to herself. “You are very strong and healthy, Seymour,” she said, “I think you will live to be very old.” “Probably. Palaces usually contain a few dodderers. But is anything the matter, Adela? The old dog is very persistent, you know.” “I’ve been feeling a little depressed.” “You stay alone too much, I believe.” “It isn’t that. I was out at the theatre with a party only last night. We went to _The Great Lover_. But he wasn’t like you. You are a really great lover.” And again she leaned forward towards him, trying to feel physically what surely she was feeling in another way. “The greatest in London, I am sure.” “I don’t know,” he said, very simply. “But certainly I have the gift of faithfulness, if it is a gift.” “We had great discussions on love and jealousy last night.” “Did you? Whom were you with?” “I went with Beryl Van Tuyn and Francis Braybrooke.”