They exchanged a few words about the wedding, but the topic was intolerable to Mrs. Clephane. She had managed to face the situation as a whole: to consider its details was still beyond her. Yet if she left that subject, just beyond it lay the question her companion was waiting to ask; and that alternative was intolerable too. She got up from her seat, moved aimlessly across the room, straightened a flower in a vase, put out a superfluous wall-light. “That’s enough illumination--at our age,” she said, coming back to her seat. “Oh--_you_!” He threw all his unspoken worship into the word. “With that hair of yours....” “My hair--my hair!” Her hands went up to the rich mass as if she would have liked to tear it from her head. At that moment she hated it, as she did everything else that mocked her with the barren illusion of youth. Fred Landers had coloured to the edge of his own thin hair; no doubt he was afraid of her resenting even this expression of admiration. His embarrassment irritated yet touched her, and raising her eyes she looked into his. “I never knew till the other day that it’s to you I owe the fact of being here,” she said. He was evidently unprepared for this, and did not know whether to be distressed or gratified. His faint blush turned to crimson. “To me?” “Oh, well--I’m not sorry it should be,” she rejoined, her voice softening. “But it’s all nonsense. Anne was determined to get you back.” “Yes; because you told her she must. She owned up frankly. She said she wasn’t sure, at first, how the plan would work; but you were. You backed me for all you were worth.” “Oh, if you mean that; of course I backed you. You see, she didn’t know you; and I did.” She continued to look at him thoughtfully, almost tenderly. “Very few people have taken the trouble to care what became of me. And you hadn’t seen me for nearly twenty years.” “No; but I remembered; and I knew you’d had a rotten bad start.” “Lots of women have that, and nobody bothers. But you did; you remembered and you brought me here.” She turned again, restlessly, and went and stood by the chimney-piece, resting her chin on her hand. Landers smiled up at her, half deprecatingly. “If I did, don’t be too hard on me.” “Why should I be? I’ve had over a year. As happiness goes, that’s a lifetime.” “Don’t speak as if yours were over.” “Oh, it’s been good enough to be worth while!” He sat silent for a while, meditatively considering his honest boot-tips. At length he spoke again, in a tone of sudden authority, such as came into his voice when business matters were being discussed. “You mustn’t come back alone to this empty house.” She looked slowly about her. “No; I never want to see this house again.” “Where shall you go, then?” “After tomorrow? There’s a steamer sailing for the Mediterranean the next day. I think I shall just go down and get on board.” “Alone?” She shed a sudden smile on him. “Will you come with me?”