'Must you go away?' she asked wistfully, not conscious how cruel she was in seeking to keep him there when every moment was pointed with a sorrowful regret, a keen anguish of loss which he could scarcely endure. 'And when will you come again?' 'Oh, I don't know. I can't come often, Gladys; it will be better not, now.' 'It is always better not,' she cried, with a strange petulance. 'There is always something in the way. If you knew how often I want to talk to you about all my plans. I always think nobody quite understands us like those whom we have known in our early days, because then there can never be any pretence or concealment. All is open as the day. Is it impossible that we can still be as we were?' 'Quite impossible.' His answer was curt and cold, and he was on his feet again, moving towards the door. 'But why?' she persisted, with all the unreason of a wilful woman. 'May a woman not have a friend, though he should be a man?' 'It would not be possible, and _he_ would not like it,' he said significantly; and Gladys flushed all over, and flung up her head with a gesture of defiance. 'He shall not dictate to me,' she said proudly. 'Well, if you will go, you will, I suppose, but you shall not walk; on that point I am determined.' She rang the bell, gave her order for the carriage, and looked at him whimsically, as if rejoicing in her own triumph. 'I am afraid I am becoming quite autocratic, Walter, so many people have to do exactly as I tell them. If you will not come, will you write to me occasionally, then? It would be delightful to get letters from you, I think.' Never was man so subtlely flattered, so tempted. Again he bit his lip, and without answering, he took a handsome frame from the piano, and glanced indifferently at the photograph he held. 'Is this the man?' he asked at hazard, and when Gladys nodded, he looked at it again with keener interest. It was the same picture of George Fordyce in his hunting-dress which Gladys had first seen in the drawing-room at Bellairs Crescent. 'A grand gentleman,' he said, with a faint note of bitterness in his tone. 'Well, I hope you will be happy.' This stiff, conventional remark appeared to anger Gladys somewhat, and for the first time in her life she cast a reproach at him. 'You needn't look so resigned, Walter. Just cast your memory back, and think of some of the kind things you have said to me when we have met since I have left Colquhoun Street. If you think I can forget, then you are mistaken. They will always rankle in my mind, and it is only natural that I should feel grateful, if nothing else, to those who are a little kinder and more attentive to me. A woman does not like to be ignored.'