Nor did he, Amory thought, show any great joy at her appearance. On the contrary, he had fixed a look very like a glare on her. Then he walked to the hearth. A big fire burned there behind a wire guard, and within the iron kerb stood the kettle he had boiled to make tea. He put his elbows on the mantelpiece and turned his back to her. Again it was Mr. Brimby's sorrowing Oxford attitude. Amory had moved towards his swivel chair and had sat down. Her heart beat a little agitatedly. He remembered!... He spoke without any beating about the bush,--"Ought you to have done this?" he said over his shoulder. She fiddled with her gloves.--"To have done what?" she asked nervously. "To have come here," came in muffled tones back. It was evident that he was having to hold himself in. Then suddenly he wheeled round. This time there was no doubt about it--it was a glare, and a resolute one. But he had not been able to think of any new line. It was the one he had used before. He made it a little more menacing, that was all. "I'm only flesh and blood--," he said quickly, his hands ever so slightly clenching and unclenching and his throat apparently swallowing something. Her heart was beating quickly enough now.--"But--but--," she stammered,--"if you only mean my coming here--I've been here lots of times before----" He wasted few words on that. "Not since----" he rapped out. He was surveying her sternly now. "But--but--," she faltered again, "--it's only me, Edgar--I _am_ connected with the paper, you know--that is to say my husband is----" "That's true," he groaned. "And--and--I should have come before--I've been intending to come--but I've been so busy----" But that also he brushed aside for the little it was worth. "_Must_ you compromise yourself like this?" he demanded. "Don't you see? I'm not made of wood, and I suppose your eyes are open too. Prang may be here at any moment. He'll see that notice on the door and wait ... and then he'll see you go out. You oughtn't to have come," he continued gloomily. "Why did you, Amory?" Once more she quailed before the blue mica of his eye. Her words came now a bit at a time. The victory was his. "Only to--to see--how the paper was going on--and to--to talk things over--," she said. "Oh!" He nodded. "Very well." He strode forward from the mantelpiece and approached the desk at which she sat. "I suppose Cosimo wants to know; very well. As a matter of fact I'm rather glad you've come. Look here----" He grabbed a newspaper from the desk and thrust it almost roughly into her hands. "Read that," he said, stabbing the paper with his finger. The part in which he stabbed it was so unbrokenly set that it must have struck Katie Deedes as overwhelmingly learned.--"There you are--read that!" he ordered her. Then, striding back to the mantelpiece, he stood watching her as if he had paid for a seat in a playhouse and had found standing-room only.