Nan looked up the corridor, but she answered to the point: "You'd lose." "It's our anniversary." She darted a look of indignant disclaimer at him. But in doing so she met his eyes. "Have you seen the decorations in Main Street?" he asked indifferently. "Come out for a minute and look at them." She shook her head: "I don't care to," she answered, looking restlessly, this time, down the corridor. "Come to the door just a minute and see the way they've lighted the arches." She knew just the expression of his eyes that went with that tone. She looked vexedly at him to confirm her suspicion. Sure enough there in the brown part and in the lids, it was, the most troublesome possible kind of an expression--hard to be resolute against. Her eyes fell away, but some damage had been done. He did not say another word. None seemed necessary. He just kept still and something--no one could have said just what--seemed to talk for him to poor defenseless Nan. She hesitated helplessly: "I can't leave uncle," she objected at last. "Ask him to come along." Her eyes fluttered about the dimly lighted hall: de Spain gazed on her as steadily as a charmer. "I ought not to leave even for a minute," she protested weakly. "I'll stay here at the door while you go." Irresolute, she let her eyes rest again for a fraction of a second on his eyes; when she drew a breath after that pause everything was over. "I'd better give him his medicine first," she said, looking toward the sick-room door. His monosyllabic answer was calm: "Do." Then as she laid her hand on the knob of the door to enter the room: "Can I help any?" "Oh, no!" she cried indignantly. He laughed silently: "I'll stay here." Nan disappeared. Lounging against the window-sill opposite the door, he waited. After a long time the door was stealthily reopened. Nan tiptoed out. She closed it softly behind her: "I waited for him to go to sleep," she explained as she started down the corridor with de Spain. "He's had so much pain to-day: I hope he will sleep." "I hope so, too," exclaimed de Spain fervently. Nan ignored the implication. She looked straight ahead. She had nothing to say. De Spain, walking beside her, devoured her with his eyes; listened to her footfalls; tried to make talk; but Nan was silent. Standing on the wide veranda outside the front door, she assented to the beauty of the distant illumination but not enthusiastically. De Spain declared it could be seen very much better from the street below. Nan thought she could see very well where they stood. But by this time she was answering questions--dryly, it is true and in monosyllables, but answering. De Spain leading the way a step or two forward at a time, coaxed her down the driveway. She stood again irresolute, he drinking in the fragrance of her presence after the long separation and playing her reluctance guardedly. "Do you know," she exclaimed with sudden resentment, "you make it awfully hard to be mean to you?"