“But what were you thinking about?” Armine continued, earnestly.  “I noticed how preoccupied you were even when you came into the room.”

“Did you?  I was thinking about a conversation I had this afternoon.  Oddly enough”—­she turned slowly towards Meyer Isaacson—­“it was with a doctor.”

“Indeed?” he said, looking her full in the face.

“Yes.”

She turned away, and once more spoke to Armine.

“I went this afternoon to a doctor, Mr. Armine, to consult him about a friend of mine who is ill and obstinate, and we had a most extraordinary talk about the soul and the body.  A sort of fight it was.  He thought me a typical silly woman.  I’m sure of that.”

“Why?”

“Because I suppose I took a sentimental view of our subject.  We women always instinctively take the sentimental view, you know.  My doctor was severely scientific and frightfully sceptical.  He thought me an absurd visionary.”

“And what did you think him?”

“I’m afraid I thought him a crass materialist.  He had doctored the body until he was able to believe only in the body.  He referred everything back to the body.  Every emotion, according to him, was only caused by the terminal of a nerve vibrating in a cell contained in the grey matter of the brain.  I dare say he thinks the most passionate love could be operated for.  And as to any one having an immortal soul—­well, I did dare, being naturally fearless, just to mention the possibility of my possessing such a thing.  But I was really sorry afterwards.”

“Tell us why.”

“Because it brought upon me such an avalanche of scorn and arguments.  I didn’t much mind the scorn, but the arguments bored me.”

“Did they convince you?”

“Mr. Armine!  Now, did you ever know a woman convinced of anything by argument?”

He laughed.

“Then you still believe that you have an immortal soul?”

“More, far more, than ever.”

She was laughing, too.  But, quite suddenly, the laughter died out of her, and she said, with an earnest face: 

“I wouldn’t let any one—­any one—­take some of my beliefs from me.”

The tone of her voice was almost fierce in its abrupt doggedness.

“I must have some coffee,” she added, with a complete change of tone.  “I sleep horribly badly, and that’s why I take coffee.  Mere perversity!  Three black coffees, waiter.”

“Not for me!” said Meyer Isaacson.

“You must, for once.  I hate doing things alone.  There is no pleasure in anything unless some one shares it.  At least”—­she looked at Armine—­“that is what every woman thinks.”

“Then how unhappy lots of women must be,” he said.

“The lonely women.  Ah! no man will ever know how unhappy.”

There was a moment of silence.  Something in the sound of Mrs. Chepstow’s voice as she said the last words almost compelled a silence.