"Perhaps then you will be able to tell me why you have come in such a state." He crossed the room in a few hasty steps, his head and shoulders disappeared inside the cupboard.

There was the sound of the withdrawal of a cork, the fizz of a sodawater syphon.

He returned to his place a different man.
"You must remember my age, Elizabeth dear," he said, apologetically.
"I haven't your nerve--it isn't likely that I should have.

When I was twenty-five, there was nothing in the world of which I was afraid." She looked him over critically.
"Perhaps I am not so absolutely courageous as you think," she remarked.
"To tell you the truth, there are a good many things of which I am afraid when you come to me in such a state.

I am afraid of you, of what you will do or say." "You need not be," he assured her hastily.