George let her go, and, all his senses being still awake to observation, remarked that in searching for a dropped glove she made a long sweep, and picked up the note from under his chair. His hand closed over hers, which she immediately opened with a red flush. He unrolled the crumpled ball of paper and read: “Grand Hotel, Scarborough. “Dear Mrs. Lauriston, “Thames Lawn, Richmond. I hope you and your husband won’t forget me when you resume your charming evenings. There’s nothing like them in town or out of it. I am constrained to beg to be remembered, for I know you have all the world at your feet, and I am but a humble unit. Always, as you know, very much at your service if I can ever be of use to you in any way, “With kind regards, yours very truly, “Arthur Pascoe.” “This is an answer, I see,” said George when he had read to the end. “So you have been writing to Captain Pascoe.” “Only for his address, that we might invite him,” said Nouna, looking frightened. “But how could you write without knowing it?” “He was going to change it, I knew. He is at Scarborough now.” George said no more, and tossed the letter into the wastepaper basket. Nouna, whose eagerness to change her shoes had disappeared, stood considering her husband, whose reticence she could not understand. She had braced herself up to meet a long interrogatory, and the simple silence made her think that something worse was in store for her. “Haven’t you anything more to say to me?” she asked at last, with her head on one side in a helpless, birdwitted manner. “Yes, dear, I have a great deal more to say to you,” burst out poor George, gliding from his chair down on to his knees before her, clasping his arms round her waist, and looking up into the beautiful mask of the spirit it was so hard to reach, so impossible to impress. “Why won’t you be quite open and frank with me, when it’s all I ask of you? When I tell you it hurts me so much for you to keep back a trifle from me that a whole evening’s pretty caresses from you can’t take out the sting of it? Can’t you see, dearest, that nobody in the world loves you so much as I, or would do as much for you? Why do you encourage these fellows to think you can ever want services from them, when you know that the man in whose bosom you lie every night lives only in your life, and for your happiness? What do you want of me that I won’t do? Why won’t you open your little heart wide to me, as you do your arms? Don’t you love me, Nouna? Don’t you love me?”