Now that he was alone in the room with her he began to feel nervous in a very peculiar and exciting way; as if something unimaginably strange were surely going to happen. Outside, the wind and rain seemed suddenly to grow loud, louder, terrifically loud; a strong whiff of air came down the chimney and blew smoke into the room. All around, everywhere, there were noises, clumping of feet on the floor above, chatter and shouting in the corridors, the distant jangle of pianos in the practice-rooms; and yet, in a deep significant sense, it was as if he and Clare were quite alone amidst the wind and rain. He poked the fire with a gesture that was almost irritable; the flames prodded into the red-tinted gloom and revealed Clare perfectly serene and imperturbable. Evidently nothing was going to happen at all. He looked at her with keen quickness, thinking amazedly: And, by the way, what _could_ have happened? "How is Helen?" she asked. He answered: "Oh, she's quite well. Very well, in fact." "And I suppose you are, also." "I look it, don't I?" She said, after a pause: "And quite happy, of course." He started, kicked the fender with a clatter that, for the moment, frightened him, and exclaimed: "Happy! Did you mean am _I_ happy?" "Yes." He did not answer immediately. He gave the question careful and scrupulous weighing-up. He thought deliberately and calculatingly of Helen, pictured her in his mind, saw her sitting opposite to him in the chair where Felling had sat, saw her and her hair lit with the glow of the fire, her blue eyes sparkling; then, for a while, he listened to her, heard her rich, sombre whisper piercing the gloom; lastly, as if sight and hearing were not evidence enough, he brought her close to him, so that his hands could touch her. He said then, with deep certainty: "Yes, I'm happy." "That's fine," she replied. "Now tell me how you're getting on with Lavery's?" He chatted to her for a while about the House, communicating to her something of his enthusiasm but not touching upon any of his difficulties. Then he asked her what she had been doing in France. She replied: "Combining business with pleasure." "How?" "Well, you see, first of all I bought back from my father's publishers all transcription rights. (They'd never used them themselves). Then, with the help of a French friend, I translated one or two of the Helping-Hand-Books into French and placed them with a Paris agent. Business you see. He disposed of them fairly, advantageously, and on part of the proceeds I treated myself to a holiday. I had an excellent time. Now I've come back to Millstead to translate a few more of my father's books." "But you're continuing to run the shop, I suppose?"