“Why is it impossible?” she persisted.

“Because—­,” he began, and then he realised with a start that they had come back again to that same old mechanical series of questions—­if only in form.

“Because there is only one thing I could ever bring myself to ask you for in this world,” he said slowly.

“Yes; what is that?” she said flutteringly.

He laid his hand tenderly on her hair.

“Merely Mary Ann.”

She leapt up:  “Oh, Mr. Lancelot, take me, take me!  You do love me!  You do love me!”

He bit his lip.  “I am a fool,” he said roughly.  “Forget me.  I ought not to have said anything.  I spoke only of what might be—­in the dim future—­if the—­chances and changes of life bring us together again—­as they never do.  No!  You were right, Mary Ann.  It is best we should not meet again.  Remember your resolution last night.”

“Yessir.”  Her submissive formula had a smack of sullenness, but she regained her calm, swallowing the lump in her throat that made her breathing difficult.

“Good-by, then, Mary Ann,” he said, taking her hard red hands in his.

“Good-by, Mr. Lancelot.”  The tears she would not shed were in her voice.  “Please, sir—­could you—­couldn’t you do me a favour?—­Nothing about money, sir.”

“Well, if I can,” he said kindly.

“Couldn’t you just play Good-night and Good-by, for the last time?  You needn’t sing it—­only play it.”

“Why, what an odd girl you are!” he said with a strange, spasmodic laugh.  “Why, certainly!  I’ll do both, if it will give you any pleasure.”

And, releasing her hands, he sat down to the piano, and played the introduction softly.  He felt a nervous thrill going down his spine as he plunged into the mawkish words.  And when he came to the refrain, he had an uneasy sense that Mary Ann was crying—­he dared not look at her.  He sang on bravely:—­

  “Kiss me, good-night, dear love,
     Dream of the old delight;
   My spirit is summoned above,
     Kiss me, dear love, good-night.”

He couldn’t go through another verse—­he felt himself all a-quiver, every nerve shattered.  He jumped up.  Yes, his conjecture had been right.  Mary Ann was crying.  He laughed spasmodically again.  The thought had occurred to him how vain Peter would be if he could know the effect of his commonplace ballad.

“There, I’ll kiss you too, dear!” he said huskily, still smiling.  “That’ll be for the last time.”

Their lips met, and then Mary Ann seemed to fade out of the room in a blur of mist.

An instant after there was a knock at the door.

“Forgot her parcels after a last good-by,” thought Lancelot, and continued to smile at the comicality of the new episode.

He cleared his throat.

“Come in,” he cried, and then he saw that the parcels were gone, too, and it must be Rosie.

But it was merely Mary Ann.