He moved uneasily in his chair.  There was no doubt about the girl’s earnestness.  She was leaning a little forward, and her brown eyes were filled with a hard, accusing light.  There was a little spot of colour, even, in her sallow cheeks.  She was unmistakably angry.

“I’d like to know who you are and what you think yourself to make a woman look like that?” she wound up.

The waiter entered with the cocktails and began to lay the cloth for dinner.  Philip paced the room uneasily until he had gone.

“Look here, my little friend,” he said, when at last the door was closed, “there’s a great deal of sound common sense in what you say.  I may be an egoist—­I dare say I am.  I’ve been through the proper training for it, and I’ve started life again on a pretty one-sided basis, perhaps.  But—­have you ever been jealous?”

“Me jealous!” she repeated scornfully.  “What of, I wonder?”

There was a suspicious glitter in her eyes, a queer little tremble in her tone.  His question, however, was merely perfunctory.  She represented little more to him, at that moment, than the incarnation of his own conscience.

“Very likely you haven’t,” he went on.  “You are too independent ever to care much for any one.  Well, I’ve been half mad with jealousy since last night.  That is the truth of it.  There’s another man wants her, the man who built the theatre for her.  She told me about him yesterday while we were out together.”

“Don’t you want her to be happy?” the girl asked bluntly.

“Of course I do.”

“Then leave her alone to choose.  Don’t go about looking as though you had a knife in your heart, if you find her turn for a moment to some one else.  You don’t want her to choose you, do you, just because you are a weakling, because her great kind heart can’t bear the thought of making you miserable?  Stand on your feet like a man and take your luck....  Can I take off my hat?  I can’t eat in this.”

The waiter had entered with the dinner.  Merton opened the door of his room and paced up and down, for a few moments, thoughtfully.  When she reappeared she took the seat opposite Philip and suddenly smiled at him, an exceedingly rare but most becoming performance.  Her mouth seemed at once to soften, and even her eyes laughed at him.

“Here you ask me to dine,” she said, “because you are lonely, and I do nothing but scold you!  Never mind.  I was typewriting something of yours this morning—­I’ve forgotten the words, but it was something about the discipline of affection.  You can take my scolding that way.  If I didn’t adore Miss Dalstan, and if you hadn’t been kind to me, I should never take the trouble to make myself disagreeable.”