"Oh dear me, no." "Well--what would you think of Putney or Wimbledon as a compromise?" "There can't be any compromise." "Why not? It's what we all have to come to." "Not I. I can only write if I'm boxed up in my funny little square, with the ash-trees weeping away in the middle." "I don't wonder," said Brodrick, "that they weep." "You think it's so terrible?" "Quite terrible." She laughed. "Do you remember how you came to see me there?" "Yes. And how you took me for the man come to tune the piano." He smiled, remembering it. A bell rang, summoning them, and he took no notice. He smiled again; and suddenly a great shyness and a terror overcame her. "Don't you really think," said he, "that this sort of thing is nicer?" "Oh, incomparably nicer. But isn't it getting rather cold?" His face darkened. "Do you want to go in?" "Yes." They rose and went together into the house. In the hall, through the open door of the drawing-room, she could see the table laid for tea, and Gertrude sitting at it by herself, waiting for them. His sister and the children had gone. Somehow she knew that he had made them go. They would come back, he explained, with the carriage that was to take her to the station, and they would say good-bye to her before she went. He evaded the drawing-room door and led the way into his library; and she knew that he meant to have the last hour with her alone. She paused on the threshold. She knew that if she followed him she would never get away. "Aren't we going," said she, "to have tea with Miss Collett?" "Would you rather?" "Much rather," said she. "Very well, just as you like," he said stiffly. He was annoyed again. All through tea-time he sulked, while Jane sustained a difficult conversation with Miss Collett. Miss Collett had lost much of her beautiful serenity. She was still a charming hostess, but there was a palpable effort about her charm. She looked as if she were beginning to suffer from the strain of Brodrick in his present mood. What Brodrick's mood was, or was beginning to be, Jane could no longer profess to be unaware. While she talked thin talk to Gertrude about the superiority of Putney Heath to Wimbledon Park, and of Brodrick's house to the houses of the other Brodricks, she was thinking, "This woman was happy in his house before I came. He would have been happy with her if I hadn't come. It would be kinder of me if I were to keep out of it, and let her have her chance." And when she had said good-bye to Mrs. Heron and the children, and found herself in the doctor's brougham, shut up all alone with Brodrick, she said to herself that it was for the last time. When she let him take her back to Kensington Square, when she let him sit with her there for ten minutes in the half-darkness, she said to herself that it was for the last time. And when he rose suddenly, almost violently, for departure, she knew it was for the last time. "It was good of you," she said, "to bring me home."