She flushed, but she looked up at him. She might have sat straight and remarked: "Mr. Fores, what do you mean by talking to me like that?" But she raised her eyes and her crimson cheeks for one timid instant, and dropped them. His voice had overcome her. With a single phrase, with a mere inflection, he had changed the key of the interview. And the glance at him had exposed her to the appeal of his face, more powerful than ten thousand logical arguments and warnings. His face proved that he was a sympathetic, wistful, worried fellow-creature--and miraculously, uniquely handsome. His face in the twilight was the most romantic face that Rachel had ever seen. His gestures had a celestial charm. He said-- "I know I ought to apologize for the way I came in this afternoon. I do. But if you knew what cause I had ...! Would you believe that old Batch had come to my place, and practically accused me of stealing the old lady's money--_stealing_ it!" "Never!" Rachel murmured. "Yes, he did. The fact is, he knew jolly well he'd no business to have left it in the house that night, so he wanted to get out of it by making _me_ suffer. You know he's always been down on me. Well, I came straight up here and I told auntie. Of course I couldn't make a fuss, with her ill in bed. So I simply told her I hadn't got her money and I hadn't stolen it, and I left it at that. I thought the less said the better. But I had to say that much. I wonder what Julian would have said if he'd been accused. I just wonder!" He repeated the word, queerly evocative: "Julian!" "What did Mrs. Maldon say?" Rachel asked. "Well, she didn't say much. She believed me, naturally. And then old Batch came. I wasn't going to have a regular scene with him up there, so I left. I thought that was the only dignified thing to do. I wanted to tell you, and I've told you. Don't you think it's a shame?" Rachel answered passionately-- "I do." She answered thus because she had a tremendous desire to answer thus. To herself she said: "Do I?... Yes, I do." Louis' eyes drew sympathy out of her. It seemed to her to be of the highest importance that those appealing eyes should not appeal in vain. "Item, he made a fearful fuss about you and me being at the cinema last night." "I should like to know what it's got to do with him!" said Rachel, almost savagely. The word "item" puzzled her. Not understanding it, she thought she had misheard. "That's what I thought, too," said Louis, and added, very gravely: "At the same time I'm really awfully sorry. Perhaps I oughtn't to have asked you. It was my fault. But old Batch would make the worst of anything." Rachel replied with feverish conviction-- "Mr. Batchgrew ought to be ashamed. You weren't to blame, and I won't hear of it!" Louis started forward with a sudden movement of the left arm. "You're magnificent," he said, with emotion.