“Wouldn’t you like me to pour out?” suggested Avery.

“No.  You keep your feet on the fender.  Do you want to hear the latest tittle-tattle—­or not?”

There was a wary gleam behind Tudor’s glasses; but Avery did not turn her eyes from the fire.  A curious little feeling of uneasiness possessed her, a sensation that scarcely amounted to dread yet which quickened the beating of her heart in a fashion that she found vaguely disconcerting.

“Don’t tell me anything ugly!” she said gently, still not looking at him.

Tudor uttered a short laugh.  “There’s nothing especially venomous about it that I can see.”  He lifted the teapot and began to pour.  “Have you heard from young Evesham lately?”

The question was casually uttered; but Avery’s hands made a slight involuntary movement over the fire towards which she leaned.

“No,” she said.

At the same moment the cup that Tudor was filling overflowed, and he whispered something under his breath and set down the tea-pot.

Avery turned towards him instinctively, to see him dabbing the table with his handkerchief.

“It’s almost too dark to see what one is doing,” he said.

“It is,” she assented gravely, and turned back quietly to the fire, not offering to assist.  A soft veil of reserve seemed to have descended upon her.  She did not speak again until he had remedied the disaster and brought her some tea.  Then, with absolute composure, she raised her eyes to his.

“You were going to tell me something about Piers Evesham,” she said.

His eyes looked back into hers with a certain steeliness, as though they sought to penetrate her reserve.

“I was,” he said, after a moment, “though I don’t suppose it will interest you very greatly.  I had it from Miss Whalley, but I was not told the source of her information.  Rumour says that the young man is engaged to Miss Ina Rose of Wardenhurst.”

“Oh, really?” said Avery.  She took the cup he offered her with a hand that was perfectly steady, though she was conscious of the fact that her face was pale.  “They are abroad, I think?”

“Yes, in the Riviera.”  Tudor’s eyes fell away from hers abruptly.  “At least they have been.  Someone said they were coming home.”  He stooped to put wood on the fire, and there fell a silence.

Avery spoke after a moment.  “No doubt he will be happier married.”

“I wonder,” said Tudor.  “I should say myself that he has the sort of temperament that is never satisfied.  He’s too restless for that.  I don’t think Miss Ina Rose is greatly to be envied.”

“Unless she loves him,” said Avery.  She spoke almost under her breath, her eyes upon the fire.  Tudor, standing beside her with his elbow on the mantelpiece, was still conscious of that filmy veil of reserve floating between them.  It chafed him, but it was too intangible a thing to tear aside.