She had managed rather marvellously to redeem one room from the old-fashioned severity of the rest of the house, the library behind the big “parlour.”  It was Nancy’s room, eloquent of her daintiness and taste, of her essential modernity and luxuriousness; and that evening, as I was ushered into it, this quality of luxuriousness, of being able to shut out the disagreeable aspects of life that surrounded and threatened her, particularly impressed me.  She had not lacked opportunities to escape.  I wondered uneasily as I waited why she had not embraced them.  I strayed about the room.  A coal fire burned in the grate, the red-shaded lamps gave a subdued but cheerful light; some impulse led me to cross over to the windows and draw aside the heavy hangings.  Dusk was gathering over that garden, bleak and frozen now, where we had romped together as children.  How queer the place seemed!  How shrivelled!  Once it had had the wide range of a park.  There, still weathering the elements, was the old-fashioned latticed summer-house, but the fruit-trees that I recalled as clouds of pink and white were gone....  A touch of poignancy was in these memories.  I dropped the curtain, and turned to confront Nancy, who had entered noiselessly.

“Well, Hugh, were you dreaming?” she said.

“Not exactly,” I replied, embarrassed.  “I was looking at the garden.”

“The soot has ruined it.  My life seems to be one continual struggle against the soot,—­the blacks, as the English call them.  It’s a more expressive term.  They are like an army, you know, overwhelming in their relentless invasion.  Well, do sit down.  It is nice of you to come.  You’ll have some tea, won’t you?”

The maid had brought in the tray.  Afternoon tea was still rather a new custom with us, more of a ceremony than a meal; and as Nancy handed me my cup and the thinnest of slices of bread and butter I found the intimacy of the situation a little disquieting.  Her manner was indeed intimate, and yet it had the odd and disturbing effect of making her seem more remote.  As she chatted I answered her perfunctorily, while all the time I was asking myself why I had ceased to desire her, whether the old longing for her might not return—­was not even now returning?  I might indeed go far afield to find a wife so suited to me as Nancy.  She had beauty, distinction, and position.  She was a woman of whom any man might be proud....

“I haven’t congratulated you yet, Hugh,” she said suddenly, “now that you are a partner of Mr. Watling’s.  I hear on all sides that you are on the high road to a great success.”

“Of course I’m glad to be in the firm,” I admitted.

It was a new tack for Nancy, rather a disquieting one, this discussion of my affairs, which she had so long avoided or ignored.  “You are getting what you have always wanted, aren’t you?”

I wondered in some trepidation whether by that word “always” she was making a deliberate reference to the past.