"I think she's in Mr. Planter's study," Betty said. "He hasn't come downstairs yet." She led him through the library to a small, square room--a quiet and comfortable book-lined retreat where Old Planter had been accustomed to supplement his work down town. George looked eagerly around, but the light wasn't very good, and he didn't at first see Sylvia. "Sylvia!" Betty called softly. "I've brought George." XXI Almost before George realized it Betty was gone and the door was closed. "Sylvia!" Her low voice reached him from a large chair opposite the single, leaded, opaque window. "I'm over here----" Yes, there was fear in her enunciation, as if she groped through shadowy and hazardous places. It cautioned him. With a choked feeling, a racking effort after repression, he walked quietly around and stared down at her. She looked up once quickly, then glanced away. He was grateful for her colour, but the fear was in her face, too, and the pride, as Betty had said, but a transformed pride that he couldn't quite understand. She lay back in the large chair, her head to one side resting against the protruding arm. Her eyes were bright with tears she had shed or wanted to shed. "Please sit down." The ring of exasperated contempt and challenge had gone from her voice. He hadn't known it could stir him so. He drew up a chair and sat close to her. "You are not angry about what I did last night?" he whispered. She shook her head. "I am grateful. I wanted to see you to tell you that, and how sorry I am--so beastly sorry, George." Her voice drifted away. It made him want his arms about her, made him want her lips again. The room became a black and restless background for this shadowy, desired, and forbidden figure. Impulsively he slipped to his knees and placed his head against the side of her chair. Across his hair he fancied a fugitive brushing of fingers. She burst out with something of her former impetuous manner. "I used to want that! Now you shan't!" He arose, and she stooped swiftly forward, as if propelled objectively, and, before he realized what she was doing, touched the back of his hand with her lips. She sprang upright and faced him from the mantel, more afraid than ever, staring at him, her cheeks wet with tears. "That's all," she whispered. "It's what I wanted to tell you. Please go. We mustn't see each other again." In the room he was aware only of her, but he knew, in spite of his own blind instinct, that between them was a wall as of transparent and heavy glass against which he would only break his strength. "Sylvia," he whispered in spite of that knowledge, "I want to touch your lips." "They've never been anybody else's," she cried in a sudden outburst. "Never could have been. I see that now. That's why I've hated you----" "Yet you love me now. You do love me, Sylvia?" "I love you, George," she said, wearily. "I think I always have." "Then why--why----" She turned on him, nearly angry.