She pulled him out of his reverie by a deliberate movement of resolution, taking her hands away from her face, half rising and turning her chair so that she faced him squarely.

“I want to know in so many words,” she said, “why you’re glad that I’m still bound to that Ravinia thing.  You seem to want me to sing there this summer, as much as you hated the idea of my doing it before.  Well, why?  Or is it something you can’t tell me?  And if I sing and make a success, shall you want me to go on with it, following up whatever opening it offers; just as if—­just as if you didn’t count any more in my life at all?”

Before he could answer she added rather dryly, “Doctor Darby would kill me for talking to you like this.  You needn’t answer if it’s going to hurt you.”

“No,” he said, “it isn’t hurting me a bit.  But I’ll answer one question at a time, I think.  The first thing that occurred to me when you spoke of the Ravinia matter was that I didn’t want you to break your word.  You had told them that they could count on you and I didn’t want you, on my account, to be put in a position where any one could accuse you of having failed him.  My own word was involved, for that matter.  I told LaChaise I wouldn’t put any obstacles, in your way.  Of course, I didn’t contract lobar pneumonia on purpose,” he added with a smile.

The intensity of her gaze did not relax at this, however.  She was waiting breathlessly.

“The other question isn’t quite so easy to answer,” he went on, “but I think I would wish you to—­follow the path of your career wherever it leads.  I shall always count for as much as I can in your life, but not—­if I can help it—­as an obstacle.”

“Why?” she asked.  “What has made the perfectly enormous difference?”

It was not at all an unanswerable question; nor one, indeed, that he shrank from.  But it wanted a little preliminary reflection.  She interrupted before he was ready to speak.

“Of course, I really know.  Have known all along.  You haven’t forgiven me.”

He echoed that word with a note of helplessness.

“No,” she conceded.  “That isn’t it, exactly.  I can’t talk the way you and Mary can.  I suppose you have forgiven me, as far as that goes.  That’s the worst of it.  If you hadn’t there’d be more to hope for.  Or beg for.  I’d do that if it were any good.  But this is something you can’t help.  You’re kind and sweet to me, but you’ve just stopped caring.  For me.  What used to be there has just—­gone snap.  It’s not your fault.  I did it myself.”

“No,” he said quickly.  “That’s where you’re altogether wrong.  You didn’t do it.  You had nothing to do with the doing of it.”

She winced, visibly, at the implication that, whoever was responsible, the thing was done.

“Paula, dearest!” he cried, in acute concern.  “Wait!  There are things that can’t be dealt with in a breath.  That’s why I was trying to think a little before I answered.”