“Sad?  But why?” he asked anxiously.

“Because it seems like one of the stopping places—­where one steps off to think, you know.  I don’t want to think.  I have had nine such miserable years.  All through the war there was one’s work, one’s hospital, the excitement of the gigantic struggle.  And now everything seems flat.  One struggles on without incentive.  One lives without hope.”

“We weren’t meant to do that,” he protested.

“Only those of us who have thrown our lives away,” she went on wearily.  “You see, I thought Henry was different.  I thought he only wanted a little understanding, a little kindness.  I made a mistake.”

“Life is too wonderful a thing,” he insisted, “to lose the glory of it for one mistake.”

“I am on the rocks,” she sighed, “now and always.  If I were made like your little luncheon friend, it might be different.  I suppose I should spread my wings and settle down upon another planet.  But I can’t.  I am differently made.  I am not proud of it.  I wish I weren’t.  It wouldn’t all seem so hard then, I am still young, you know, really,” she added, with a note of rebellion in her tone.

“How young?”

“Thirty-one.”

“Nowadays, that is youth,” he declared confidently, “and youth means hope.”

“Sometimes,” she admitted a little listlessly, “I have dared to feel hope.  I have felt it more than ever since you came.  I don’t know why, but there it is.”

He turned his head and looked at her, appraisingly yet with reverence.  No measure of despair could alter the fact that she was a very beautiful woman.  Her slimness never lost its meed of elegance.  The pallor of her cheeks, which might have seemed like an inheritance of fragility, was counteracted by the softness of her skin and the healthy colour of her curving lips.  She bore his scrutiny so impersonally, with such sweet and challenging interest, that he persisted in it.  Her brown hair was almost troublesome in its prodigality.  There were little curls about her neck which defied restraint.  Her cool muslin gown, even to his untutored perceptions, revealed a distinction which the first dressmaker in London had endorsed.  She spoke the words of lifelessness, yet she possessed everything which men desire.

“The tragedy with you,” he pronounced, “is the absence of affection in your life.”

“Do you think that I haven’t the power for caring?” she asked quietly.

“I think that you have had no one to care for,” he answered.  “I think there has been no one to care for you in the way you wanted—­but those days are over.”

For the first time she showed some signs of that faint and growing uneasiness in his presence which brought with it a peculiar and nameless joy.  Her eyes failed to meet the challenge of his.  She glanced at the clock and changed the subject abruptly.

“Do you know that I have been here all this time,” she reminded him, “and we have not said a word about our campaign.”