There was no doubt about the spirit of Lucia's reception that night. Perhaps the finest appreciation of connoisseurs had never touched her more than did the praise of that simple audience. Rickman was the only one who did not thank her. For when her playing was over he had turned suddenly very cold, seized with a fierce shivering, the reaction from the tense fever of his nerves; and it was with difficulty that he controlled the chattering of his teeth. But before they parted for the night he asked if he might "call" some afternoon; his tone pointing the allusion to the arrangement that permitted this approach, "We can't talk very well here, can we?" he said. She answered by inviting him and Miss Walker to tea the next day. He was conscious of a base inward exultation when he heard poor Flossie say that she could only look in later for a little while. In October, work was heavy at the Bank, and the Beaver seldom got home till after tea-time. His conscience asked him sternly if he had reckoned on that too? When to-morrow came, Miss Hoots was busy also, and disappeared after tea. He had certainly reckoned on that disappearance. There was a moment of embarrassment on his part when he found himself alone with Lucia in the room (his room) that he had made ready for her. He had done his work so thoroughly well that the place looked as if it had been ready for her since the beginning of time. She was tired. He remembered how tired she used to be at Harmouth; and he noticed with a pang how little it took to tire her now. She leaned back in his chair, propped by the cushions he had chosen for her (chosen with a distinct prevision of the beauty of the white face and dark hair against that particular shade of greenish blue). She had been reading one of his books; it lay in her lap. Her feet rested on his fender, they stretched out towards the warmth of his fire. If only it were permitted to him always to buy things for her; always to give her the rest she needed; always to care for her and keep her warm and well. He wondered how things had gone with her those five years. Had she been happy in that college in the south? Had they been kind to her, those women; or had they tortured her, as only women can torture women, in some devilish, subtle way? Or would overwork account for the failure of her strength? He thought he saw signs in her tender face of some obscure, deep-seated suffering of the delicate nerves. Well, anyhow she was resting now. And in looking at her he rested, too, from the labour of conscience and the trouble of desire. Heart and senses were made quiet by her mere presence. If his hands trembled as they waited on her it was not with passion but with some new feeling, indescribable and profound. For brought so near to him as this, so near as to create the illusion of possession, she became for him something too sacred for his hands to touch.