She was disappointed, because his letters had made her think that she was going to find him just as she had left him, as indeed he had been till the moment when he saw her after her arrival; but then he had changed at once.

He had been disappointed then, as she was now, and chilled, as she was now; he had felt that he was shrinking from her then, as she now shrank from him.

He suffered a good deal in his quiet way, for he had never known any woman who had moved him as she once had; but she suffered too, and in a much more resentful way.

Two years of maddening success had made her very sure that she had a prime right to anything she wanted--within reason! If she let him alone he would sit out his half-hour's visit, making an idle remark now and then, and he would go away; but she would not let him do that.

It was too absurd that after a long and affectionate intimacy they should sit there in the soft light and exchange platitudes.
'Tom,' she said, suddenly resolving to break the ice, 'we have been much too good friends to behave in this way to each other.