"I shall be interested to know what you think of this!" he said, leaning forward and lifting the book from the arm of her chair, where she had allowed it to lie untouched. She smiled mechanically, though her senses were strained to observe Gore's attitude. "It is very good of you! I am sure--I am sure I shall like it." For an instant his cold glance rested curiously on her face; the next, it fell again to the book. "I shall expect you to like it," he said enigmatically. "What is the book?" Gore came quietly forward and stood looking down at them. Deerehurst raised his eyes with an expression in which amusement and a faint contempt were to be read by a close observer. "The book?" he said. "Oh, something, I am afraid, that wouldn't interest you! I don't believe the writer knew anything of far countries--or even of fishing." He paused, and deliberately turned half a dozen pages. "He only understood one thing, but that he understood perfectly." Gore laughed. "And may a philistine ask what it was?" "Oh, certainly! It was love." The door opened as he said the word in his high, expressive voice, and to Clodagh's indescribable relief, Nance entered. In the second that she stepped across the threshold her bright eyes passed from one face to the other, and a rapid process of deduction took place in her mind. "Walter," she said pleasantly, "Pierce says there's one question he forgot to ask you about Japan. Do you mind if I ask it now?" She walked to the open window. Gore followed her; and Clodagh drew a breath of deep relief. Ten minutes passed--ten interminable minutes, in which she strove to attend to Deerehurst's words, while her ears were strained to follow the conversation in the window. Then at last relief came. He rose to go. "I must say good-bye!" he said, taking her hand. "I shall await your verdict on the verses. There is one I want you specially to read--the last one. Good-bye!" She smiled, scarcely hearing what he said; and a moment later he had bowed to the two in the window, and passed out of the room. As the outer door closed, Nance came across to her sister. "Do you mind if I run down to Sloane Street, Clo?" she asked. "I never remembered those lozenges for Aunt Fan, and I can just catch the Irish mail." Without waiting for an answer, she stooped and kissed Clodagh's forehead; and, turning, passed out of the room. After she had left, there was a silence, in which neither Clodagh nor Gore made any attempt to speak. Filled with a nervous sense of something inevitably impending, Clodagh sat very still. She dreaded to look at Gore, lest she might precipitate what he was going to say; yet, to her strained mind, suspense appeared intolerable. She clasped her hands suddenly, with a little catching of the breath. At the faint, yet significant sound, he turned from the window; and coming quietly across the room, paused behind her chair.