She was turning all the tables on him. “Let’s be friends,” he said. When he slipped his arm about her, she flinched. “Mind my flowers. Don’t crush them. You must first say that you’re sorry.” “I’m sorry. Terribly sorry.” “All right, then. But you did hurt me last night when--when you went away like that.” “But you often let me go away like that.” She held up a finger. “You’re starting again.” She rose and walked over to a pile of parcels which were lying on the piano. As he watched her, the thought of Tom came back. She hadn’t explained those photographs; his pride wouldn’t permit him to ask her. “You’re not very curious, Meester Deek. Why d’you think I kept you waiting in the passage and wouldn’t let you come in here? I was afraid you might see something. I’ll let you see it now.” She was leaning against the piano. He went and stood beside her. She moved nearer so that her hair swept his cheek like a caress. “Do you like it?” She placed a miniature of herself done on ivory in his hand. “Better than the poor little tin-type portrait that faded!” “For me?” he asked incredulously. “Who else? No, listen before you thank me. I thought they’d never get it done. They’ve been weeks over it. All day I’ve been hurrying them. Now, won’t you own that you have been misunderstanding?” “I’ve been an unjust idiot.” “Not so bad as that. And I’m not so bad, either, if you only knew---- Now I’ll put on your bracelet Did you notice that I wasn’t wearing it?” “Why weren’t you?” The babies came into her eyes. “You’ve had a narrow escape. If you hadn’t been nice, I was going to have given it back to you. Let’s fetch it. You can fasten it on for me.” From the steps of the apartment-house they hailed a hansom, and drove through the winking night to the Claremont. “‘So, honey, jest play in your own backyard,” she sang. When she found that she couldn’t intimidate him, she started on another fragment, filling in the gaps with humming when she forgot the words: “Oh, you beautiful girl, What a beautiful girl you are! You’ve made my dreams come true to me----” “Sounds as though I were praising myself, doesn’t it? Don’t come so near, Meester Deek; every time you hug me you carry away so much of my little white foxes. ‘Beware of the foxes, the little foxes that spoil the something or other.’ Didn’t some one once say that? I wish you’d beware; soon there won’t be any fur left.” While she went to the lady’s room to see whether her appearance had suffered under his kisses, he engaged a table in a corner, overlooking the Hudson. Towards the end of the meal, when she was finishing an ice and he was lighting a cigar, a silence fell between them. She sat back with her eyes partly closed and her body relaxed. Up to that moment she had been daringly vivacious. He had learnt to fear her high spirits and fits of niceness. They came in gusts; they always had to be paid for with periods of languor.