Still, exposed or guarded, I had my life to live, and I was no longer disposed in the matter of this intimacy with Miss Levey to do nothing at all. Therefore, when I returned from seeing Aunt Angela away and found Evie still in the dining-room, I took my risk. She ought to have been in bed; but instead she had drawn up a chair to an old bureau, and was quite unnecessarily fiddling with old papers and letters and nondescript objects put away in the nest of drawers. She looked up as I entered, and the vivacity with which she spoke seemed a little forced. "Fancy, Jeff!" she exclaimed, her fingers in the leaves of some old twopenny notebook or other, "I can actually read my old shorthand yet! I should have thought I'd forgotten all about it, after all this time! I'll bet I could read as quickly as you!" I stirred the dying fire. "Isn't it time you were in bed?" I said. "Oh, just let me tidy this--I sha'n't be many minutes." And while I picked up an evening paper she went on with her pottering about the bureau. But the light sound of the moving paper began to get a little on my nerves. It does that sometimes. I suppose it's like some people fidgeting if there is a cat in the room. And presently I noticed that when she supposed me to be busily reading the rustling stopped. It was no good going on like this; the sooner I came to the point and said what I had to say, the better. I thought for a moment, and then put down my newspaper. "Evie----" I said. "Yes, dear?" she said brightly.... I put it with perfect gentleness. Suddenness and sharpness also are among the trifles of life I had had to forego. When I had finished, she did not seem surprised. She only nodded once or twice. "I see," she said slowly. "Well, Miriam--I mean Miss Levey, if you wish it, dear----" "No, darling; I don't know that I go as far as that. I was only speaking of these broadcast intimacies." "Miriam, then--Miriam said you would object----" "Well, I never denied Miriam a certain acuteness." But she shook her head. For a minute or two I had been sure that I was not the only one who had something to say. When she did go on, it was at first haltingly, and then with just such a little setting of her resolution as she had used when, years ago, a sweet and awkward flapper, she had complimented me on my spurious engagement to the lady whose name she now suddenly mentioned. "I don't mean to object to--to what you've been saying, Jeff. I mean--I mean object to this about poor Kitty. I know," she quickened, as if to forestall a remark, "that we haven't said anything about it--you and I--for a long time--but"--once more the rush--"I've felt you've known what I've been thinking, Jeff----" I gained a little time. "But I wasn't speaking of Kitty Windus, dear," I said. "It was something quite different." Then, before her look of trouble and appeal, I ceased my pretence.