“Miss Duffield,” he said, “you are not going to make the mistake so many make of thinking what I do a deliberate thing. If you will examine my note with care, you will find in it all the silly guile of sudden inspiration. I am a creature of moods.” He looked at her as he had wanted to, across the table. “So are you, Miss Duffield.” “How do you know?” “Why else did you come?” She was not so foolish as to say: “There might be other reasons.” She was not so willing as to admit his statement. She was silent. Tom began to laugh: a clear, long laughter. When he was done, they both knew he had laughed something away. The rest was easy. Marcia was certain that Tom was the contrary of canny and deliberate. He liked her: he had done a direct thing to see her. He was unworldly as ever a man must be who understands a woman. And she liked him. She liked the respectful way he spoke of her mother. Somehow, it gave her a sense that he was trustworthy: although she had no thought of why this quality should particularly interest her. She liked the assumption in his words of her superior perspective. “Of course, Mrs. Duffield would not understand our coming down here to have tea together. Dear lady! Does not a tinge of deception have to go into a sincere relation? Every mother must forget her daughter if she would live. It is the duty not alone of her friends--of her daughter also--to see she may. For her to know the truth of you and me would be, not to know the truth from the standpoint of her and me, but an irrelevant, damaging lie.” He said these words, not pleadingly, not in argument, but as two co-religionists perhaps might mention an unmooted point: or as two students might discuss a lesson they had learned together.... Tom had, not an enemy in the house of Duffield, but another ally: a subtle, an amazing one. Far from having been delivered into Marcia’s hands, the hastening events laid her at least equally in his. They balanced the accounts.... * * * * * Marcia was wine for Tom. Never before had he been so held by the body of a woman. Never had he dreamed a woman could so swing with both reserves and desires: so without effort, without stint. She filled his room with miracle. She filled his life with the ease of power. How did this come about: this wonder he had in touching her cold skin, in meeting the hardness of her teeth, her soft lips? What was this Marcia? Madness.... Madness in sanity as wine in a cool cup. She came to his warm room. She did not kiss him. She did not speak. She did not stir. She was there.