“Indeed you won’t!” She faced him squarely.  “I know you mean very kindly, Godfrey—­I know exactly how you feel.  I’ve often felt like that myself; you feel that

   “’Sympathy without relief
     Is like mustard without beef.’

“That’s the organ-grinder’s motto, and a very good motto, too.  But we’re the exception which proves the rule.  We’re grateful for your sympathy, but we don’t want your relief.”

As he gazed at her, both dismayed and very exasperated, she went on, speaking a little wildly:—­“Mustard’s a very good thing.  I think I needed a little mustard just now to binge me up!”

“But that’s perfectly absurd!” he exclaimed.  “Why not have the beef as well as the mustard?  And look here.  I don’t think it’s fair to me.”  He stood, looking straight at her, his face aglow with feeling.  And again it was as if the old Godfrey of long ago, the Godfrey that had been impetuous, hot-tempered, unreasonable, and yet so infinitely dear to her, who stood there, so near to her that had she moved, he must have touched her.  She sat down, and unseen by him, she put her two hands on the edge of the well-scrubbed table, and pressed her fingers down tightly.  Then she smiled up at him, and shook her head.

“You’re treating me like a stranger,” he protested doggedly; “however badly I’ve behaved, I’ve not deserved that.”

He was looking down at her hair, the lovely fair hair which had always been her greatest beauty—­the one beauty she now shared with Rosamund.  He wondered if it would ever grow long again.  And yet now he told himself that he did not want to see her different from what she had become.

“Treating you like a stranger?  You’re the first visitor we’ve had to stay at Old Place since the Armistice.”

As he said nothing, she went on, a little breathlessly, “D’you remember what a lot of people used to come and go in the old days?  That was one of the nice things about Janet.  She loved to entertain our friends, even our acquaintances.  But now we never have anybody.  It shows how we feel about you that we are having you here, like this.  But we can only do it if you’ll take us as we are.”

“Of course I take you as you are,” he said aggrieved, “but I don’t see why I shouldn’t do my little bit, when it’s so easy for me to do it.  People talk such rot about money!  They’ll take anything in the world but money from those who—­” he hesitated, and then boldly brought out the word—­“love them.”

“And yet,” said Betty quietly, “you yourself contemptuously rejected the money that father wanted to give you when he could well afford it—­the day you left Beechfield nine years ago.”

He hesitated, unutterably astonished, and yes, very much moved, too, at this, her first reference to their joint past.

“I know I did,” he said at last, “and I was a fool to do it.  That cheque of Mr. Tosswill’s would have made all the difference to me during certain awful weeks in Australia when I didn’t know where to turn for a shilling.  I’ve been right up against it—­the reality of things, I mean—­and I know both how much and how little money counts in life.  It counts a lot, Betty.”