"I waited," returned Bennett. "You didn't." "I did. I waited quite five minutes." "I waited half an hour." Gertrude took her courage in both hands and said: "If you had cared for me, you would have seen me." "I waited," mumbled Bennett, obstinately. They were silent again. Gertrude began to feel uneasy. They had quarrelled before, but always when she had touched on his affection for her his opposition had been broken. She could not take his stubbornness seriously even now. A little maliciously she was thinking: "After all he is ten years younger than I am." Unhappily for her, Bennett, with more malice, was thinking: "After all, she is ten years older than I am." For the first time he had become dimly aware that the advantage lay with himself. He said: "I left the office earlier than I had any right to do to meet you. You could not have looked for me." "Why will you go on arguing about it?" "I've no wish to argue." He only wished to avoid silence, to avoid facing what was irresistibly being borne in upon him, that all his relations with this woman had been a phantasm, a thing of the mists of yesterday. It was a hateful shock to all his theories, to all his ideals of constancy and single-minded devotion. He had worshipped this woman, set her--(at her own suggestion, though he did not know it)--on a pedestal, and lo! a day had come when she was no longer there. The pedestal remained, but the goddess was spirited away. He was very unhappy. Gertrude was exasperated. She could have slapped him with infinite pleasure. She tapped with her foot on the ground. "You are being too ridiculous," she said. "Am I ever anything else?" returned Bennett, with a sudden plunge into self-torment. Pat came the reply: "Never!" Bennett felt savage, turned on her and cried: "Now I know what you think of me." Gertrude was sorely tempted to let him think so, but she had in mind the difficulty of confessing to the women upstairs, her mother and three sisters, her return to unplighted maidenhood. She could not face that. She began to mop at her eyes, ate her words humbly, and declared that he had made her utterly miserable. She had so looked forward to seeing him again. It had made her so happy to be with him in the study once more, like old times, and all he could do was to snarl and growl; and if he was going to be like that before, what would he be like after. . . . Bennett pacified her as best he could, abused himself, said that he was not worthy to touch the hem of her garment, and, just as she was prepared for the final redeeming sinking into tenderness, amazed her--(himself too)--by announcing that he must go and help Annette prepare the supper.