I said of course I would, and then he took Venice’s arm to lead her away. But Venice dragged, her eyes intent on the carpet, and when she suddenly looked round at me I saw that her eyes were brimming with tears. “Men!” she smiled. “Men!” “Men!” mocked Napier, but he smiled, too. “What?” “But don’t you think it’s a shame!” she bitterly appealed to me. “There’s Mrs. Storm very ill and expecting to see Napier, all lonely up there, and here Naps puts me in the beastly position of a wife who----” But I was thinking that the shame of it lay in the disadvantage at which a woman always is with a man whom she loves more than she feels he loves her, the disadvantage of never knowing how far she may use an artificial pride, for there is no real pride in a heart in love, without upsetting the apple-cart. “Nonsense, Venice,” Napier was saying, and it was his mildness, his calmness, that was so astonishing now. It was as though the man had suddenly found peace: as though love-lost Tristram raving in the wilderness had, in a sudden flash, realised that he was trying God too far.... “Nonsense, Venice,” he scowled, still holding her arm. “She isn’t beginning to expect me and she never did. I just turned up by chance....” He turned to me with that clear, not conspiratorial, look in his eyes. “You will say good-bye from me, won’t you?” “Of course,” I said. “I may be seeing her to-day.” “Yes, just say good-bye,” said Napier, and as he and I shook hands Venice laughed nervously: “Dear, how serious! I can’t bear good-byes....” And so she shook my hand without saying good-bye, saying instead: “You have been a darling to let me bore you with my nonsense, and I hope you’ll pray that it keeps fine for us in your sister’s car. See you in London soon....” And away they went, Napier and Venice, he still holding her arm just above the elbow, she still appearing to drag a little, across the now deserted and darkening lounge to the glass doors, which a small boy opened to them. But the small boy must hold it open, for they stood in the doorway a short while, as it might be they were arguing, and through the gloom of the afternoon I could see Napier’s set white profile, drawn in ivory it might have been, and the way he seemed to be smiling grimly into Venice’s upturned face, and I could see the way Venice’s face suddenly lit right up with a smile, just like a garden with the sun after rain. Now what could he have said to make her smile so, or had he said just any little thing, which her love, most princely alchemist, had straightway transmuted into a golden word?