"I do love your light hair, Henry," she said aloud, "and it is so well brushed. You Englishmen are certainly _soigne_ creatures, and I like your lazy, easy grace--as though you would never put yourself out for any one. I can't bear a fuss." She puffed her cigarette and did not wait for him to answer her, but prattled on perfectly at ease. Even his courtesy would not have prevented him from snubbing her, if she had been the least tentative in her caressings, or the least diffident. But she just took it as a matter of course that she could stroke his hair if she wanted to, and presently it began to give him a sensation of pleasure and rest. If she had, by word or look, suggested that she expected some return, Henry would have frozen at once--but all she did was apparently only to please herself, and so he had no defense to make. Still in the character of domestic tyrant, she presently led him to the comfortable armchair, and once more seated herself upon the stool close to the fire by his side. Here she was silent for a few moments, letting the comfort of the whole scene sink in to his brain--and then, when the maid came in to clear away the dinner-table, she got up and went to the piano, where she played some soft, but not sentimental tunes. Music of a certain sort would be the worst thing for him, but a light air while Marie was in the room could do no harm. Though, when she went over close to him again, she saw that even this pause had allowed him time to think, and that his face was once more overcome by melancholy, although he greeted her with a smile. Something further must be done. "Henry," she said, cooingly, kneeling down beside him and taking his hand, "will you promise me something, please. I am not clever like you, but I do know one splendid recipe for taking away pain; every time the thought of Sabine comes up to you and the old pictures you used to hold, look them squarely in the face, and then deliberately replace them with others that you can obtain--the strange law of periodicity will be in motion and, if you have only will enough, gradually the pictures that can be yours will unconsciously have taken the place of the old ones which have caused you pain. Is it not much better to do that than just to let yourself grieve--surely it is more like a man?" Henry looked at her, a little startled. This idea had never presented itself to him. Yes, it was certainly more like a man to try any measure than "just to grieve," and what if there should be some truth in this suggestion--? What did the "law of periodicity" mean? What an American phrase! How apt they were at coining expressive sentences. He looked into the glowing ashes--there he seemed to see in ruins the whole fabric of his dreams--but if there was a law which brought thoughts back, and back again at the same hour each day, then Moravia was right: he must blot out the old pictures and conjure up new ones--but what could they be--?