"The gall rose up in my throat, Bob. I saw myself working in a sacred frenzy in his studio, sweating blood, and my joy over my creations. I saw myself eager, hopeful, ardent, devoted, with a happy, cheerful belief in everybody. I had it then, I did indeed. Then I saw my ruined life, my wasted years as an engineer in Albany, my miserable, my cruel marriage, the things I stooped to and the degradation I might have known. My mother, whom I never saw again, called me--my wife, my child, passed before me like ghosts. If I could have had a little encouragement from him then, only just my due, well.... I was thinking of all those things whilst they spoke of him, and then I looked over to her...." As he spoke Mrs. Faversham's name, Antony's voice softened. "... And she was looking at me so strangely, strangely, as though she felt something, knew something, and my silence seemed ungracious and proof of my jealousy; but I could not have said a warm word in praise of him to save my character in her eyes. When we were alone after dinner she asked me, in a voice different to any tone I have heard from her, 'Don't you like Mr. Cedersholm? You don't seem to admire him. I have never heard you speak his name, or say a friendly word about him,' and I couldn't answer her properly, and she seemed troubled." Fairfax stopped speaking. The two friends stood mutely side by side. Then Antony said more naturally-- "You see a little of how I feel, Bob." And the other replied, "Yes, I see a little of how you feel"; but he continued with something of his old drollery: "I would like to know a little of how _she_ feels." "What do you mean?" Antony's voice was so curt, and his words were so short, that Dearborn was quick to understand that it would not be wise to touch on the subject of the woman. "Why, I mean, Tony, that it is a valuable study for a playwright. I should like to understand the psychology of all characters." Fairfax shrugged impatiently. "Confound you, you are a brute. All artists are, I reckon. You drive your chariot over human hearts in order to get a dramatic point." Here the post came and with it a blue letter whose colour was familiar to Dearborn now, and he busied himself with his own mail under the lamp. Fairfax opened his note. It had no beginning. * * * * * "If it does not rain to-morrow, will you take me to Versailles? Unless you send me word that you cannot go, I will call for you at ten o'clock. We will drive through the Bois and lunch at the Reservoirs." * * * * * For a moment it seemed as though Antony would hand over his note to Dearborn, as he had handed Mrs. Faversham's first letter the night it came. But he replaced it in its envelope and put it in his pocket. CHAPTER X