“Yes, half-past five...” The door from the shop opened, and she sat down very quickly. “I’m glad,” I said in a commonplace voice, “that these new typewriters are all right.” I went into the inner office and routed out the paysheet in order to find her name—Effie Rink. And did no work at all that afternoon. I fretted about that dingy little den like a beast in a cage. When presently I went out, Effie was working with an extraordinary appearance of calm—and there was no look for me at all.... We met and had our talk that evening, a talk in whispers when there was none to overhear; we came to an understanding. It was strangely unlike any dream of romance I had ever entertained. VII I came back after a week’s absence to my home again—a changed man. I had lived out my first rush of passion for Effie, had come to a contemplation of my position. I had gauged Effie’s place in the scheme of things, and parted from her for a time. She was back in her place at Raggett Street after a temporary indisposition. I did not feel in any way penitent or ashamed, I know, as I opened the little cast-iron gate that kept Marion’s front grader and Pampas Grass from the wandering dog. Indeed, if anything, I felt as if I had vindicated some right that had been in question. I came back to Marion with no sense of wrong-doing at all with, indeed, a new friendliness towards her. I don’t know how it may be proper to feel on such occasions; that is how I felt. I followed her in our drawing-room, standing beside the tall lamp-stand that half filled the bay as though she had just turned from watching for me at the window. There was something in her pale face that arrested me. She looked as if she had not been sleeping. She did not come forward to greet me. “You’ve come home,” she said. “As I wrote to you.” She stood very still, a dusky figure against the bright window. “Where have you been?” she asked. “East Coast,” I said easily. She paused for a moment. “I _know_,” she said. I stared at her. It was the most amazing moment in any life.... “By Jove!” I said at last, “I believe you do!” “And then you come home to me!” I walked to the hearthrug and stood quite still there regarding this new situation. “I didn’t dream,” she began. “How could you do such a thing?” It seemed a long interval before either of us spoke another word. “Who knows about it?” I asked at last. “Smithie’s brother. They were at Cromer.” “Confound Cromer! Yes!” “How could you bring yourself” I felt a spasm of petulant annoyance at this unexpected catastrophe. “I should like to wring Smithie’s brother’s neck,” I said.... Marion spoke in dry, broken fragments of sentences. “You... I’d always thought that anyhow you couldn’t deceive me... I suppose all men are horrid—about this.” “It doesn’t strike me as horrid. It seems to me the most necessary consequence—and natural thing in the world.”