“Wrecked my life? If a man’s a man, do you suppose his life can be wrecked by anybody but himself? Do I look like a wreck? I’ve lived every minute of these twenty years to the full power of body and brain. If I made any appeal, on that score, to your pity or suchlike sentiments, I should be a contemptible liar. If there’s any question of playing the devil with lives, I did it with yours.” “Oh, no, no!” Her voice quivered and she sank back in her chair, with averted head. “Of course not. That’s absurd.” “Well then,” he asked, “what’s all the fuss about? We loved each other when we parted. Pretty passionately and desperately, too. Why we shouldn’t love each other now, when fate throws us together again, I can’t understand.” She answered wearily: “I’ve told you. The years that the locust hath eaten.” “What locust?” “Ah!” she sighed. He took a pace or two towards the door, halted, turned and looked at her as she sat by the tea-table, and the pain in her eyes and the piteous twist of her lips smote him with remorse. A remarkable idea entered his head. He clinched the entrance by smiting his left palm with his right fist. Naturally any idea coming into Baltazar’s head could not fail to be correct. He went behind her chair and laid his finger-tips on her shoulder. “My dear,” said he tenderly, “forgive me. I ought to have thought of it before. A beautiful and accomplished woman——” She swerved round. “Oh, don’t! You mean that there may have been someone else—since——? Well, there hasn’t. I’ve been far too busy.” And seeing him incredulous of the fallibility of his idea, she added with a touch of petulance: “If there had been anybody, I should have told you so at once.” For the moment she wished there had been an intervening lover whose memory she could use as a rampart, for again she felt defenceless. If only Godfrey would come! He had promised to call for her on his way back from London, whither he had been summoned by a Medical Board. She glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. Godfrey’s train would not arrive for another hour. With some apprehension she watched Baltazar, who was moving about the room in a restless, puzzled way. “Don’t you see you’re spoiling it all?” she said. “And I haven’t even finished my tea.” Laughter like quick sunshine lit his face. “A thousand pardons, Marcelle. I of all people to outrage the etiquette of tea-drinking!” He sat down. “Another cup, please. I shall get used to it soon. The Ceylon tea, I mean—not being with you.”