For a time she sat motionless, considering him, interested in his silence and abstraction--in the set of his shoulders, and the unconscious grace of him. Light, touching his short blond hair, made it glossy like a boy's where his hand had disarranged it above the forehead. Certainly it was very pleasant to see him again--agreeable to be with him--not exactly restful, perhaps, but distinctly agreeable--for even in the frequent silences that had crept in between them there was no invitation to repose of mind. On the contrary, she was perfectly conscious of a reserve force now awaking--of a growing sense of freshness within her; of physical renewal, of unsuspected latent vigour. "Are you attempting to go to sleep, Mr. Quarren?" she inquired at last. He dropped his hand, smiling: she made an instinctive move--scarcely an invitation, scarcely even perceptible. But he came over and seated himself on the arm of the lounge beside her. "Your letters," he said, "did a lot for me." "I wrote very few.... Did they really interest you?" "A lot." "How?" "They helped that lame old gaffer, Time, to limp along toward the back door of Eternity." "How do you mean?" "Otherwise he would never have stirred a step--until to-night." "That is very gallant of you, Mr. Quarren--but a little sentimental--isn't it?" "Do you think so?" "I don't know. I'm a poor judge of real sentiment--being unaccustomed to it." "How many men made you declarations?" "Oh; is _that_ real sentiment? I thought it was merely love." He looked at her. "Don't," he said. "You mustn't harden. Don't become like the rest." She said, amused, or pretending to be: "You are clever; I _have_ grown hard. To-day I can survey, unmoved, many, many things which I could not even look at yesterday. But it makes life more interesting. Don't you think so?" "Do you, Mrs. Leeds?" "I think so.... A woman might as well know the worst truths about life--and about men." "Not about men." "Do you prefer her to remain a dupe?" "Is anybody happy unless life dupes them?" "By 'life' you mean 'men.' You have the seraglio point of view. You probably prefer your women screened and veiled." "We are all born veiled. God knows why we ever tear the film." "Mr. Quarren--are you becoming misanthropic?" she exclaimed, laughing. But under his marred eyes of a boy she saw shadows, and the pale induration already stamped on the flesh over the cheek-bones. "What have you been doing with yourself all these weeks?" she asked, curiously. "Working at my trade." "You seem thinner." "Fewer crumbs have fallen from the banquet, perhaps. I keep Lent when I must." "You are beginning to speak in a way that you know I dislike--aren't you?" she asked, turning around in her seat to face him. He laughed.