_If there were time_! There was almost time to memorize the whole time-table while I waited for him. I sat in the coolest corner of the hall and tried to interest myself in a month-old copy of _Lustige Blätter_--the only non-Magyar newspaper on the premises. But it was difficult--as difficult as it is to appreciate the comic papers in a dentist's waiting-room. When a quarter of an hour passed and Terry didn't return, I began to reproach myself with having left him at all; and then, as a relief from that, I tried to analyse, in the perspective of seven years, that early episode with Helen that had so vitally affected his life. What, exactly, _had_ happened between the two of them? ... The clock chiming the hour drove me back again from past to present. There seemed something ominous in his non-appearance--a hint of something terrible that might be happening behind the screened door of the lounge. What might not such a man as Severn do with such a man as Terry? ... The minutes drew towards the half-hour, and I think I should have boldly walked into the lounge when the clock struck, had not Terry, a minute earlier, come out to me--alone. His face was paler than ever, and his eyes--his eyes were just what I didn't like to see. It angered me to think of the strain that all this incessant listening and thinking and arguing was putting on him; it gave me a furious, unreasoning anger with Severn and Helen and Terry himself and the world in general. His first words were an eager, disjointed apology for having kept me waiting longer than he had intended; and I replied, with perhaps a touch of curtness: "There's a fast train to Vienna at four this afternoon. Shall we go back?" And he answered: "Yes.... And Severn's coming with us." "_What_?" "He's coming with us--through Vienna--on his way to England. He's going back to England--immediately.... He's promised.... He's promised absolutely.... And so--you see--after all--I mean--he--he----" "You mean he's going back to Helen?" "Yes--yes--that's it.... He's promised.... He's given me his word.... He wouldn't go back on his word, would he? ... Oh, I _know_ he wouldn't do _that_...." He floundered on into positive incoherence, and then, as if feeling the hopelessness of speech, sank down into a chair beside mine and smiled. VI It was true enough that he had done it, but _how_ he had done it was just an enormous mystery. All he said to me when he was calm enough to tell me anything was that Severn had "promised." He didn't boast of having persuaded him, though that was what it seemed to have been. "We just talked," he said. "He was quite different after you had gone. You see, you're clever, and in front of you he likes to say clever things, but he didn't bother when he was with me alone, because he knew I wouldn't appreciate them. Of course, I'm not much good at arguing, but then, you see, we didn't argue--we just _talked_."