"I want very much to speak to you, Stephen," she said, and her tone told him that whatever she wanted to talk about had nothing whatsoever to do with themselves. He led her into the inner office. A curious thing was happening to him. He had never been in love with Lydia. He had deliberately allowed her beauty and wealth to dazzle him; he had admired her courage, her sureness of herself, contrasting it with his own terror of giving offense to anyone; but at times he had almost hated her. If she had inspired him with one atom of tenderness he would not have deserted her. She never had. He had cut himself off from her without regret. But now as she sat there, finer and paler and more--much more--than two years older, she did inspire tenderness, tenderness of a most vivid and disturbing sort. He could not take his eyes from her face. He suddenly cut into what she was saying about Evans. "Lydia, my dear, are you happy? Yes, yes, of course I can get from the governor anything you ask me, but tell me about yourself." He leaned over, taking her hands in his. She rose, withdrawing them slowly as she did so. "Not now," she answered, and moved toward the door. "You mustn't go like that," he protested. "Just think, my dear, I have not seen you for two years--the toughest two years I ever spent! You can't just come and go like this. I must see you, talk to you." "When you have got me Evans' pardon, Stephen--if you get it." She still spoke gently, but there was a good deal of intention behind Lydia at her gentlest. He caught the "if"--almost an insult after his confident assertion, but he did not think of the insult. He was aware of nothing but the desire that she should smile gayly and admiringly at him again as she used to, making him feel Jovian. "I'm going to New York on Thursday," he said. "On Friday evening you shall have the pardon. Will you be at the opera Friday evening?" She hesitated. She had not been to the opera yet. She could not bear the publicity of that blazing circle, but she had kept her box. After all, she thought, she could sit in the back of it, and music was one of the greatest of her pleasures. "Will you join me there?" she said. "It will be like old times." "Not quite," she answered. Still with his hand on the knob of the door, as if he were just going to open it for her, he detained her, trying to make her talk, asking her about her friends, her work, her health; trying to hit upon the master key to her mind, and at last, for he was a man of long experience, he found it. "And that damned crook who prosecuted your case," he said. "Do you ever see him?" She shook her head. "I prefer not even to think of him," she replied, and this time she made a gesture that he should open the door. Instead he stepped in front of it. He had waked her; he had her attention at last. "Naturally, naturally," he said, "but I wish you would think of him for a minute. I'm in rather a fix about that fellow."