Then, indeed, when the end of their business interview approached, and with it the opportunity for conversation of a different kind, both were conscious of a certain tremor.  To him this old parlour was torturingly full of memories.  In this very place where they sat he had given her his mother’s pearls, and taken a kiss in return from the cheek that was once more so near to him.  With what free and exquisite curves the hair set about the white brow!  How beautiful was the neck—­the hand!  What ripened, softened charm in every movement!  The touching and rebuking thought rose in his mind that from her nursing experience, and its frank contact with the ugliest realities of the physical life—­a contact he had often shrunk from realising—­there had come to her, not so much added strength, as a new subtlety and sweetness, some delicate, vibrating quality, that had been entirely lacking to her first splendid youth.

Suddenly she said to him, with a certain hesitation: 

“There was one more point I wanted to speak to you about.  Can you advise me about selling some of those railway shares?”

She pointed to an item in a short list of investments that lay beside them.

“But why?” said Aldous, surprised.  “They are excellent property already, and are going up in value.”

“Yes, I know.  But I want some ready money immediately—­more than we have—­to spend on cottage-building in the village.  I saw a builder yesterday and came to a first understanding with him.  We are altering the water-supply too.  They have begun upon it already, and it will cost a good deal.”

Aldous was still puzzled.

“I see,” he said.  “But—­don’t you suppose that the income of the estate, now that your father has done so much to free it, will be enough to meet expenses of that kind, without trenching on investments?  A certain amount, of course, should be systematically laid aside every year for rebuilding, and estate improvements generally.”

“Yes; but you see I only regard half of the income as mine.”

She looked up with a little smile.

He was now standing in front of her, against the fire, his grey eyes, which could be, as she well knew, so cold and inexpressive, bent upon her with eager interest.

“Only half the income?” he repeated.  “Ah!”—­he smiled kindly—­“is that an arrangement between you and your mother?”

Marcella let her hand fall with a little despairing gesture.

“Oh no!” she said—­“oh no!  Mamma—­mamma will take nothing from me or from the estate.  She has her own money, and she will live with me part of the year.”

The intonation in the words touched Aldous profoundly.

“Part of the year?” he said, astonished, yet not knowing how to question her.  “Mrs. Boyce will not make Mellor her home?”

“She would be thankful if she had never seen it,” said Marcella, quickly—­“and she would never see it again if it weren’t for me.  It’s dreadful what she went through last year, when—­when I was in London.”