‘She may be right, though,’ said Walter, and though he would have given worlds for the privilege, he dared not presume to take Gladys at her word and offer her his arm.  But they went into the dining-room side by side; and at the table, Gladys, though watching keenly, detected very little of the old awkwardness, none at all of that blunt rudeness of speech and manner which had often vexed her sensitive soul.  For the first time for many many months Walter permitted himself to be at ease and perfectly natural in his manner, and the result was entirely satisfactory; self-consciousness is fatal to comfort always.  Gladys wore a black gown of some shimmering soft material, with a quaint frill of old lace falling over the low collar, a bunch of spring snowdrops at her belt, and her lovely hair bound with the black velvet band which none could wear just in the same way—­a very simple, unostentatious home toilet, but she looked, Walter thought, like a queen.  Possessed of a wonderful tact, Gladys managed, while the meal progressed, to confine the conversation to commonplace topics, so that the servant who attended should not be furnished with food for remark.  Both were glad, however, to return to the drawing-room, where their talk could be quite unrestrained.

’And now you are going to tell me everything about this wonderful metamorphosis,’ she said merrily,—­’every solitary thing.  When did it dawn upon you that even a handsome man is utterly dependent on his tailor?’

There was at once rebuke and approval conveyed in this whimsical speech, which made Walter’s face slightly flush.

’It dawned upon me one day, looking in at a shop window where I could see myself, that I was a most disreputable-looking object, quite eligible to be apprehended as an able-bodied vagrant.’

’How delightful!  I hope the shock was very bad, because you deserved it.  Now that you have come back clothed and in your right mind, I am not going to spare you, Walter, and I will say that after my last visit to Colquhoun Street I quite lost hope.  It is always the darkest hour before the dawn, somebody has said.’

’If I’d thought you cared’—­Walter began, but stopped suddenly; for Gladys turned from the table, where she was giving her attention to some drooping flowers, and her look was one of the keenest wonder and reproach.

’Now you are weak, Walter, trying to bring your delinquencies home to me,’ she said, with the first touch of sharpness he had ever seen in her.  ’It has been your own fault entirely all along, and I have never had a solitary bit of sympathy for you, and I don’t know, either, what you meant by going on in any such manner.’

’I didn’t understand it myself then; I seemed goaded on always to be a perfect brute when you came.  But I believe I understand it now, and perhaps it would be better if I did not.’

He spoke with considerable agitation, which Gladys affected not to notice, while her white fingers touched the drooping blossoms tenderly, as if sympathising with them that their little day was over.