And then came the terrible question: “How can I be anything else?” She heard the door opening behind her, took her hands from the mantelpiece, and turned round quickly. “Mr. Craven, my lady.” “You’re all ready? Capital! I say, am I late?” “No. It’s only a little past seven.” He had taken her hand. She longed to press his, but she did not press it. He looked at her, she thought, rather curiously. “I’ve got a taxi at the door. It’s rather a horrid night. You’re not dressed for walking?” Again his look seemed to question her. She put up a hand to her face, near the mouth, nervously. “We had better drive. In these winter evenings walking isn’t very pleasant. We must be a little less Bohemian in taste, mustn’t we?” He seemed now slightly constrained. His eyes did not rest upon her quite naturally, she thought. “Shall we go down?” she said. “Yes, do let us.” As she moved to go she looked into the glass. She could not help doing that. He noticed it, and thought: “I wonder why she has begun making her face up like this?” He did not like it. He preferred her as she had been when he had first come to her house on an autumn evening. To him there was something almost distressing in this change which he noticed specially to-night. And her look into the glass had shown him that she was preoccupied about her appearance. Such a preoccupation on her part seemed foreign to her character as he had conceived of it. Her greatest charm had been her extraordinary lack, or apparent lack, of all self-consciousness. She had never seemed to bother about herself, to be thinking of the impression she was making on others. But she was certainly looking very handsome. She put on a fur. They got into the cab and drove to Soho. Craven had ordered the table in the window to be reserved for them. The restaurant was fairly, but not quite, full. The musicians were in their accustomed places looking very Italian. The lustrous _padrona_ smiled a greeting to them from her counter. Their bright-eyed waitress hurried up and welcomed them in Italian. Vesuvius erupted at them from the walls. There was a cozy warmth in the unpretentious room, an atmosphere of careless intimacy and good fellowship. “Let me take off your fur!” She slipped out of it, and he hung it up on a hook among hats and coats which looked as if they could never have anything to do with it. “I’ll sit with my back to the window,” she said. She sat down, and he sat on her left facing the entrance.