"Oh! That's kind of you," said he, his pleasure gaining strength. "I'm happy to say that there _is_,--the best news. He's going to get well." "I'm so glad to hear it," replied Miss Heth.... If, in despite of herself, there was a trace of stiff self-consciousness in her voice and air, how was she to be blamed for that? There is a breaking-point for even the most "finished" manner, and the sight of this man to-day was like a rough hand on a new wound. A great wave of helplessness had broken over her, as the opening door revealed his face: how could you possibly avoid the unavoidable, how destroy the indestructible? And it seemed that, since yesterday, he had robbed her of her one reliable weapon.... The tall young man pushed back his light hair. He was smiling. The mild winter sun streamed down upon him, and his face looked worn, as if he wanted sleep. "We had a consultation this morning--three doctors," he went on, in the friendliest way. "They're sure they've found out where the trouble is. A little operation, of no difficulty at all--I've done it myself, once in the hospital!--and he'll be walking the street in a fortnight." "That is good news, indeed. We have been so--sorry about his illness." "Thank you--it's a tremendous relief to me, of course. He seemed so very ill last night...." Standing under his eye in the tiled vestibule, Carlisle produced, from her swinging gold case, not her card, but those of Mr. and Mrs. B. Thornton Heth, and extended them in a gloved hand. "May I leave these?" she said, with the reemergence of "manner." "My mother and father will be delighted to learn that Mr. Beirne is soon to be well again." "That's very kind. I know my uncle would be--_will_ be--much gratified by your interest and sympathy." Who shall know the heart of a woman? The thing was done, the inquiry over. The most punctilious inquirer could have bowed now, and walked away down the steps. Cally imperceptibly hesitated. She had four times met this man, and he had three times (at the lowest computation) driven her from his presence. That thought, unsettling in its way, had leapt at her somewhere in the night: she had sought to drape it, but it had persisted somewhat stark. And now had not he himself taught her, by that hateful apology which seemed to have settled nothing, that there were subtler requitals than by buffets upon the front?... The pause was psychological purely, well covered by the card-giving. Words rose to Cally's tongue's tip, gracious words which would show in the neatest way how unjust were this man's opinions of her and her family. However, the adversary spoke first. "I'm so glad to--to see you again, Miss Heth," he began, with a loss of ease, twirling the B. Thornton Heth cards between long thin fingers--"to have the opportunity to say.... That is--perhaps you'll let me say--you mustn't think the Works are so--so disappointing as perhaps they may seem, just at first sight. You know--"