But I found a fire, already falling to embers, and Susan before it, curled into my big wing chair, her feet beneath her, her hands lying palms upward in her lap. This picture fixed me in the doorway while my throat tightened. Susan did not stir, but she was not sleeping. She had withdrawn. Presently she spoke, absently--from Saturn's rings; or the moon. "Ambo? I've been waiting to talk to you; but now I can't or I'll lose it--the whole movement. It's like a symphony--great brasses groaning and cursing--and then violins tearing through the tumult to soar above it." Her eyes shut for a moment. When she opened them again it was to shake herself free from whatever spell had bound her. She half yawned, and smiled. "Gone, dear--all gone. It's not your fault. Words wouldn't hold it. Music might--but music doesn't come.... Oh, poor Ambo--you've had a wretched time of it! How tired you look!" I shut the door quietly and went to her, sitting on the hearth rug at her feet, my knees in my arms. "Sweetheart," I said, "it seems that in spite of myself I've done you little good and about all the harm possible." And I made a clean breast of all the facts and fears that the evening had developed. "So you see," I ended, "what my guardianship amounts to!" Susan's hand came to my shoulder and drew me back against her knees; she did not remove her hand. "Ambo," she protested gently, "I'm just a little angry with you, I think." "No wonder!" "Oh!" she exclaimed. "If I am angry it's because you can say stupid things like that! Don't you see, Ambo, the very moment things grow difficult for us you forget to believe in me--begin to act as if I were a common or garden fool? I'm not, though. Surely you must know in your heart that everything you're afraid of for me doesn't matter in the least. What harm could slander or scandal possibly do me, dear? Me, I mean? I shouldn't like it, of course, because I hate everything stodgy and _formidablement bête_. But if it happens, I shan't lose much sleep over it. You're worrying about the wrong things, Ambo; things that don't even touch our real problem. And the real problem may prove to be the real tragedy, too." "Tragedy?" I mumbled. "Oh, I hope not--I think not! It all depends on whether you care for freedom; on whether you're really passion's slave. I don't believe you are." The words wounded me. I shifted, to look up at, to question, her shadowy face. "Susan, what do you mean?"