Hilda in a curious way grew proud of him. With an extraordinary inconsequence she dwelt upon the fact that, always grand--even as a caterer, he had caused to be printed at the foot of the menu forms which he had instituted, the words: "A second helping of all or any of the above dishes will willingly be served if so desired." And in the general havoc of the shock she began to be proud also of herself, because it was the mysterious power of her individuality that had originated the disaster. The sense of their intimate withdrawn seclusion in the room, disordered and littered by arrival, utterly alone save for the living flame of the gas, the sense of the tragedy, and of the responsibility for it, and especially her responsibility, the sense of an imposed burden to be grimly borne and of an unknown destiny to be worked out, the sense of pity, the sense of youth and force,--these things gradually exalted her and ennobled her desolation. "Why did you keep it from me?" she asked in a very clear and precise tone, not aggrieved, but fatalistic and melancholy. "Keep what from you?" At length he met her eyes, darkly. "All this about your being married." "Why did I keep it from you?" he repeated harshly, and then his tone changed from defiance to a softened regret: "I'll tell you why I kept it from you! Because I knew if I told you I should have no chance with a girl like you. I knew it'd be all up--if I so much as breathed a hint of it! I don't suppose you've the slightest idea how stand-offish you are!" "Me stand-offish!" she protested. "Look here!" he said persuasively. "Supposing I'd told you I wanted you, and then that I'd got a wife living--what would you have said?" "I don't know." "No! But _I_ know! And suppose I'd told you I'd got a wife living and then told you I wanted you--what then? No, Hilda! Nobody could fool about with you!" She was flattered, but she thought secretly: "He could have won me on any terms he liked!... I wonder whether he _could_ have won me on any terms!... That first night in this house, when we were in the front attic--suppose he'd told me then--I wonder! What should I have said?" But the severity of her countenance was a perfect mask for such weak and uncertain ideas, and confirmed him deeply in his estimate of her. He continued: "Now that first night in this house, upstairs!" He jerked his head towards the ceiling. She blushed, not from any shame, but because his thought had surprised hers. "I was as near as dammit to letting out the whole thing and chancing it with you. But I didn't--I saw it'd be no use. And that's not the only time either!" She stood silent by the dressing-table, calmly looking at him, and she asked herself, eagerly curious: "When were the other times?" "Of course it's all my fault!" he said. "What is?" "This!... All my fault! I don't want to excuse myself. I've nothing to say for myself."