Turner followed the servant along the corridor. The stairs had rather tried one who had to elevate such a weight at each step; he breathed hard, but placidly. Mrs. St. Pierre Lawrence received him with an unusual _empressement_. Dormer Colville, who was discovered sitting as far from her as the size of the room allowed, was less eager, but he brought forward a chair for the banker and glanced sharply at his face as he sat down. "So glad to see you," the hostess explained. "It is really kind of you to come and cheer one up on such a dull afternoon. Dormer and I--won't you take off your coat? No, let _me_ put it aside for you. Dormer and I were just--just saying how dull it was. Weren't we?" She looked from one to the other with a rather unnatural laugh. One would have thought that she was engaged in carrying off a difficult situation and, for so practised a woman of the world, not doing it very well. Her cheeks were flushed, which made her look younger, and a subtle uncertainty in her voice and manner added to this illusion charmingly. For a young girl's most precious possession is her inexperience. Mrs. St. Pierre Lawrence, for the first time in her life, was not sure of herself. "Now I hope you have not come on business," she added, drawing forward her own chair and passing a quick hand over her hair. "Bother business! Do not let us think about it." "Not exactly," replied Turner, recovering his breath. "Quite agree with you. Let us say, 'Bother business,' and not think of it. Though, for an old man who is getting stout, there is nothing much left but business and his dinner, eh?" "No. Do not say that," cried the lady. "Never say that. It is time enough to think that years hence when we are all white-haired. But I used to think that myself once, you know. When I first had my money. Do you remember? I was so pleased to have all that wealth that I determined to learn all about cheque-books and things and manage it myself. So you taught me, and at last you admitted that I was an excellent man of business. I know I thought I was myself. And I suppose I lapsed into a regular business woman and only thought of money and how to increase it. How horrid you must have thought me!" "Never did that," protested Turner, stoutly. "But I know I learnt to think much too much about it," Mrs. St. Pierre Lawrence went on eagerly. "And now that it is all gone, I do not care _that_ for it." She snapped her finger and thumb and laughed gaily. "Not that," she repeated. She turned and glanced at Dormer Colville, raising her eyebrows in some mute interrogation only comprehensible to him. "Shall I tell him?" she asked, with a laugh of happiness not very far removed from tears. Then she turned to the banker again.