He forced himself to a politeness he felt to be magnanimous. “I don’t want to dwell on past injuries, Christine,” he said, coldly. “I should be pleased to know that what you did brought happiness.” “Happiness!” she repeated, almost inaudibly, in ironic mockery, her gaze still fixed upon the fire. Suddenly she looked round to him. “Harry!” she said, impulsively. “Harry!” Her eyes went beyond him for a moment to the litter of papers on his desk, returned to him. “Harry! I know I am disturbing you”--the old pathetic smile came into her face--“but I want to ask you a favour--” she hesitated, as though her courage failed her--“the favour for which I came.” He hardened himself for a refusal. “What is it?” he asked. “I want you to give up your work for just one hour--I want you to sit by the fireside and talk to me. Won’t you? Won’t you let me come first for just once--as--as I used to want to in the old days?” Her eyes, fine as ever, implored him in almost irresistible appeal. “I have dreamed of this for so long!” She went on as in a reverie, after a little pause, staring once more into the fire. “You never would, Harry--and perhaps--if you had----” She sighed. “You were so ambitious!” He stood immobile, typically reluctant to break his habits. Those cases were important. He was coming to himself now, the effect of the first shock diminishing. Some of the old anger awoke in his heart as he looked down upon her. The old sense of disturbance returned. It was just like her to come and break up his night’s work. And now--after all that had happened! He resented her presumption, stigmatized it as sheer callousness. She looked up, feeling his thoughts perhaps. “Harry! Can’t you--for just this once? I don’t ask you to forgive.” Her eyes held him, enfeebled his resistance. “I’ve got nothing to tell you, Christine,” he said, gruffly. “Nothing. I didn’t ask you to come back, but since you have come--well, I will not shut you out in the cold. You can sit by the fire if you like.” She smiled--the little ghost of her twenty-year-old smile upon that worn and middle-aged face. He clenched his teeth at it, at something in himself. “Have you really nothing to say to me, Harry? Not a question to ask?” He armed himself against the pathos of her appeal. “No,” he said, curtly. “Nothing.” She shut her eyes as though under a blow. Then, with a tacit admission of its justice, she smiled up at him again. Evidently, her courage was held at high tension. “I know I don’t deserve it,” she said. “I don’t deserve to be sitting here again, after all these years. But, oh, Harry, you _could_ be generous--once, at those rare times when I could really touch the real you as I so often longed to do. Are you still hard, Harry?--still so hard?” She sighed, wearily, turned her head hopelessly once more to the fire.