"Oh, we have been a couple of pigs," she laughed, replying to his thoughts. "I did sometimes think of writing you. I kept the address you gave me. Not for any assistance; I wanted to fight it out for myself. But I was a bit lonely." "Why didn't you?" he asked. She hesitated for a moment. "It's rather soon to make up one's mind," she said, "but you seem to me to have changed. Your voice sounds so different. But as a boy--well, you were a bit of a prig, weren't you? I imagined you writing me good advice and excellent short sermons. And it wasn't that that I was wanting." "I think I understand," he said. "I'm glad you got through. "What is your line?" he asked. "Journalism?" "No," she answered. "Too self-opinionated." She opened a bureau that had always been her own and handed him a programme. "Miss Ann Kavanagh, Contralto," was announced on it as one of the chief attractions. "I didn't know you had a voice," said Matthew. "You used to complain of it," she reminded him. "Your speaking voice," he corrected her. "And it wasn't the quality of that I objected to. It was the quantity." She laughed. "Yes, we kept ourselves pretty busy bringing one another up," she admitted. They talked a while longer: of Abner and his kind, quaint ways; of old friends. Ann had lost touch with most of them. She had studied singing in Brussels, and afterwards her master had moved to London and she had followed him. She had only just lately returned to New York. The small servant entered to clear away the tea things. She said she thought that Ann had rung. Her tone implied that anyhow it was time she had. Matthew rose and Ann held out her hand. "I shall be at the concert," he said. "It isn't till next week," Ann reminded him. "Oh, I'm not in any particular hurry," said Matthew. "Are you generally in of an afternoon?" "Sometimes," said Ann. He thought as he sat watching her from his stall that she was one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen. Her voice was not great. She had warned him not to expect too much. "It will never set the Thames on fire," she had said. "I thought at first that it would. But such as it is I thank God for it." It was worth that. It was sweet and clear and had a tender quality. Matthew waited for her at the end. She was feeling well disposed towards all creatures and accepted his suggestion of supper with gracious condescension. He had called on her once or twice during the preceding days. It was due to her after his long neglect of her, he told himself, and had found improvement in her. But to-night she seemed to take a freakish pleasure in letting him see that there was much of the old Ann still left in her: the frank conceit of her; the amazing self-opinionatedness of her; the waywardness, the wilfulness, the unreasonableness of her; the general uppishness and dictatorialness of her; the contradictoriness and flat impertinence of her; the swift temper and exasperating tongue of her.