“Are you sorry for a man who is ill and depressed,” he asked one day, “or do you despise him?” “I am sorry.” “Then be sorry for me.” He had come out of the house to her as she sat on the lawn, under a broad, level-branched tree, and had thrown himself upon a rug with his hands clasped behind his head. “Are you ill?” “When I was on the Riviera I had a fall.” He lied simply. “I strained some muscle or other, and it has left me rather lame. Sometimes I have a good deal of pain.” “I am very sorry,” said Betty. “Very.” A woman who can be made sorry it is rarely impossible to manage. To dwell with pathetic patience on your grievances, if she is weak and unintelligent, to deplore, with honest regret, your faults and blunders, if she is strong, are not bad ideas. He looked at her reflectively. “Yes, you are capable of being sorry,” he decided. For a few moments of silence his eyes rested upon the view spread before him. To give the expression of dignified reflection was not a bad idea either. “Do you know,” he said at length, “that you produce an extraordinary effect upon me, Betty?” She was occupying herself by adding a few stitches to one of Rosy's ancient strips of embroidery, and as she answered, she laid it flat upon her knee to consider its effect. “Good or bad?” she inquired, with delicate abstraction. He turned his face towards her again--this time quickly. “Both,” he answered. “Both.” His tone held the flash of a heat which he felt should have startled her slightly. But apparently it did not. “I do not like 'both,'” with composed lightness. “If you had said that you felt yourself develop angelic qualities when you were near me, I should feel flattered, and swell with pride. But 'both' leaves me unsatisfied. It interferes with the happy little conceit that one is an all-pervading, beneficent power. One likes to contemplate a large picture of one's self--not plain, but coloured--as a wholesale reformer.” “I see. Thank you,” stiffly and flushing. “You do not believe me.” Her effect upon him was such that, for the moment, he found himself choosing to believe that he was in earnest. His desire to impress her with his mood had actually led to this result. She ought to have been rather moved--a little fluttered, perhaps, at hearing that she disturbed his equilibrium. “You set yourself against me, as a child, Betty,” he said. “And you set yourself against me now. You will not give me fair play. You might give me fair play.” He dropped his voice at the last sentence, and knew it was well done. A touch of hopelessness is not often lost on a woman. “What would you consider fair play?” she inquired.