“Tell me again. Why didn’t you say something nice to me then? You were short, sharp, noncommittal. I went away quite downcast, I made sure you did not want my poor little book, that you would write and refuse it, in set businesslike terms.” “I knew I would not. If George had said no, I should have fought him. I was determined upon that book of Staffordshire Pottery. Were you disappointed with my letter when it came?” “I loved it. I have always loved your letters. You never disappoint me then.” Because they had grown more intimate he was able to say to her gently, but with unmistakable feeling: “Dear, it hurts me so when you say that. I know I shall think of it when I am alone, wonder in what way I fail you, how I can alter or change. Can you help me, tell me? I came down with such confidence.” “But you had cut yourself shaving.” “Be a little serious, beloved. Tell me.” “You thought I cared for you ... that we should begin in Pineland where we left off in London?” “I hoped....” “But I had run away from you!” They smiled at each other. “You will come again next week?” she asked him inconsistently. “And if I should again disappoint you?” “Then you must be patient with me, good to me until it is all right again. I am a strange creature, a woman of moods.” She was silent a moment. “I have been through so much.” He bent toward her. She rose abruptly, there had been little or no caressing between them. Now she spoke quickly: “Don’t hope too much ... or ... or expect anything. I am a megalomaniac: everything that happens to me seems larger, grander, finer, more wonderful than that which happens to any one else.” She paused a moment. “This ... then, between us is friendship?” she went on tentatively. He answered her very steadily: “This, between us, is what you will.” “You know how it has been with me?” Her voice was broken. He was deeply moved and answered: “God gave it to me to comfort you.” There was a long pause after that. It was getting late, and they must soon part. He kissed her hands when he went away, first one and then the other. “Until next week.” “Until next week, or any time you need me.” Then there were letters between them, letters that have already been transcribed. He came the next week and the next. A man of infinite culture, widely read and with a very real knowledge of every subject of which he spoke, it was not perhaps strange that she fell under the spell of his companionship, and found it ever more satisfying. Her own education was American and superficial, but her intelligence was really of a high order and browsed eagerly upon his. The only other she was seeing at this time was Dr. Peter Kennedy, a man of very different calibre. Peter Kennedy, country born and bred, of a coarsening profession and provincial experience.