"Well, I thought we were neighbours there--more than here. Or have you forgotten the estate?" "Let us leave aside the matter of being neighbours," she answered, "and I don't suppose that I have much voice in the management of the estate as long as--he lives. The guardians will see to that." "But you could run down there once in a while ... in the summer for instance. Your place is always ready for you. I saw to that." "Ah, yes, you saw to that." The wistful irony that he had so often noted was visible again. For the first time he understood its meaning. "She has made things too easy for me," he reflected. "I should have felt my chains. Then, too, I would have realised what I possessed in her." But did he not still possess her? What, after all, had changed since those days of quiet companionship? Why should he think of her as lost to him? He could not answer this question. But he felt a dull restlessness. A sense of estrangement told him: All is not here as it was. "Since when do you live in dreams, Alice?" he asked, surveying the empty table by which he had found her. His question had been innocent, but it seemed to carry a sting. She blushed and looked past him. "How do you mean?" "Good heavens, to sit all evening without books and let the light burn in vain--that was not your wont heretofore." "Oh, that's it. Ah well, one can't be poking in books all the time. And for the past few days my eyes have been aching." "With secret tears?" he teased. She gave him a wide, serious look. "With secret tears," she repeated. "_Ah perfido_!" he trilled, in order to avoid the scene which he feared ... But he was on the wrong scent. She herself interrupted him with the question whether he would stay to supper. He was curious to find the causes of the changes that he felt here. For that reason and also because he was not without compunction, he consented to stay. She rang and ordered a second cover to be laid. Louise looked at her mistress with a disapproving glance and went. "Dear me," he laughed, "the servants are against me ... I am lost." "You have taken to noticing such things very recently." She gave a perceptible shrug. "When a wife tells a husband of his newly acquired habits, he is doubly lost," he answered and gave her his arm. The silver gleamed on the table ... the tea-kettle puffed out delicate clouds ... exquisitely tinted apples, firm as in Autumn, smiled at him. A word of admiration escaped him. And then, once more, he saw that tragic smile on her lips--sad, wistful, almost compassionate. "My darling," he said with sudden tenderness and caressed her shoulder. She nodded and smiled. That was all. At table her mood was an habitual one. Perhaps she was a trifle gentler. He attributed that to his approaching departure. She drank a glass of Madeira at the beginning of the meal, the light Rhine wine she took in long, thirsty draughts, she even touched the brandy at the meal's end.