She looked up, and met across the table the engaging innocence that she recognised as the habitual expression of his face. He had no idea of what dreadful things she was thinking of him. She put her thoughts from her, admitting that she had never had to reckon with that, yet. But it was terrible to her that, while he forced her to such thinking, he could sit there so unconscious, and so unashamed. He sat there, bright-eyed, smiling, a little flushed, playing with a light topic in a manner that suggested a conscience singularly at ease. He went on sitting there, absolutely unembarrassed, eating dessert. The eating of dinner was bad enough, it showed complacency. But dessert argued callousness. She had wondered how he could have any appetite at all. Her dinner had almost choked her. And she sat waiting for him to finish, hardly looking at him, detached, saint-like, and still. At last her silence struck him as a little ominous. He had distinct misgivings as they turned into the study for coffee and his cigarette. Anne sat up in her chair, refusing the support and luxury of cushions, leaning a little forward with a brooding air. "Well, Nancy," said he, "are you going to read to me?" (Better to read than talk.) "Not now," said she. "I want to talk to you." He saw that it was not to be avoided. "Won't you let me have my coffee and a cigarette first?" She waited, silent, with a strained air of patience more uncomfortable than words. "Well," said he, lighting a second cigarette, and settling in the position that would best enable him to bear it, "out with it, and get it over." "I want to know," said she, "what you are going to do." "To do?" He was genuinely bewildered. "Yes, to do." "But about what?" "About that woman." He was so charmed with the angelic absurdity of the question that he paused while he took it in, smiling. "I can't see," he said presently, "that I'm called upon to take action. Why should I?" She drew herself up proudly. "For my sake." He was instantly grave. "For your sake, dear, I would do a great deal. But"--he smiled again--"what action should I take?" "Is it for me to say?" "Well, I hardly know. I should be glad, at any rate, if you'd make a suggestion. I can't, for instance, get up and turn the lady out of her own sister's house. Do you want me to do that? Would you like me to--to take her away in a cab?" There was a long silence, so awful that he forced himself to speak. "I am extremely sorry. It was, of course, outrageous that you should have had to sit in the same room with her for five minutes. But what could I do?" "You could have taken _me_ away." "I did, as soon as I got the chance." "Not before you had"--she paused for her phrase--"condoned her appearance." "Condoned her appearance? How?" "By your whole manner to her." "Would you have had me uncivil?" "There are degrees," said she, "between incivility and marked attention."