He stood a little distance behind her, watching her, and she nodded affably to him in the glass: "I'm quite changed; you are right. I'm not as nice as I was when I first knew you.... I'm not as contented; I'm restless--I wasn't then.... Amusement is becoming a necessity to me; and I'm not particular about the kind--as long as it does amuse me. Tell me something exciting." "A cradle song is what you require." "How impudent of you. I've a mind to punish you by retiring to that same cradle. I'm dreadfully cross, too. Do you realise that?" "I realise how tired you are." "And--I'll never again be rested," she said thoughtfully, looking at her mirrored self. "I seem to understand that, now, for the first time.... Something in me will always remain a little tired. I wonder what. Do you know?" "Conscience?" he suggested, laughing. "Do you think so? I thought it was my heart." "Have you acquired one?" She laughed, too, then glanced at him askance in the glass, and turned around toward him, still smiling. "I believe I didn't have any heart when I first knew you. Did I?" "I believe not," he said lightly. "Has one germinated?" "I really don't know. What do you think?" He took her cigarette from her and tossed it, with his own, into the fire. She seated herself on a sofa and bent toward the blaze, her dimpled elbows denting her silken knees, her chin balanced between forefinger and thumb. Presently she said, not looking at him: "Somehow, I've changed. I'm not the woman you knew. I'm beginning to realise it. It seems absurd: it was only a few weeks ago. But the world has whirled very swiftly. Each day was a little lifetime in itself; a week a century condensed; Time became only a concentrated essence, one drop of which contained eons of experience.... I wonder whether my silly head _was_ turned a little.... People said too much to me: there were too many of them--and they came too near.... And do you know--looking back at it now as I sit here talking to you--I--it seems absurd--but I believe that I was really a trifle lonely at times." She interlaced her fingers and rested her chin on the back of them. "I thought of you on various occasions," she added. He was leaning against the mantel, one foot on the fender. Her eyes rested on that foot, then lifted slowly until they remained fixed on his face which was shadowed by his hand as though to shield his eyes from the bracket light.