A moment later the front door closed below.

Then Selwyn came back into the library.
For an hour he sat there telling her the gayest stories and talking the most delightful nonsense, alternating with interesting incisions into serious subjects: which it enchanted her to dissect under his confident guidance.
Alert, intelligent, all aquiver between laughter and absorption, she had sat up among her silken pillows, resting her weight on one rounded arm, her splendid young eyes fixed on him to detect and follow and interpret every change in his expression personal to the subject and to her share in it.
His old self again! What could be more welcome?
Not one shadow in his pleasant eyes, not a trace of pallor, of care, of that gray aloofness.
How jolly, how young he was after all! They discussed, or laughed at, or mentioned and dismissed with a gesture a thousand matters of common interest in that swift hour--incredibly swift, unless the hall clock's deadened chimes were mocking Time itself with mischievous effrontery.
She heard them, the enchantment still in her eyes; he nodded, listening, meeting her gaze with his smile undisturbed.

When the last chime had sounded she lay back among her cushions.
"Thank you for staying," she said quite happily.
"Am I to go ?" Smilingly thoughtful she considered him from her pillows: "Where were you going when I--spoiled it all?
For you were going somewhere--out there"-- with a gesture toward the darkness outside--"somewhere where men go to have the good times they always seem to have.

.

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