‘How?’

’I’ll tell you another time.  If it weren’t for my father’s illness, I think I could go home feeling almost happy.  But how am I to know what you are doing?’

‘What do you wish me to do?’

‘Just tell me how you live.  What shall you do now, when I’m gone?’

’Sit disconsolate,’—­he came nearer—­’thinking you were just a little unkind.’

‘No, don’t say that.’  Nancy was flurried.  ’I have told you the real reason.  Our housekeeper says that father was disappointed and angry because I put off my return from Teignmouth.  He spoke to me very coldly, and I have hardly seen him since.  He won’t let me wait upon him; and I have thought, since I know how ill he really is, that I must seem heartless.  I will come for longer next time.’

To make amends for the reproach he had uttered in spite of himself, Tarrant began to relate in full the events of his ordinary day.

’I get my own breakfast—­the only meal I have at home.  Look, here’s the kitchen, queer old place.  And here’s the dining-room.  Cupboards everywhere, you see; we boast of our cupboards.  The green paint is de rigueur; duck’s egg colour; I’ve got to like it.  That door leads into the bedroom.  Well, after breakfast, about eleven o’clock that’s to say, I light up—­look at my pipe-rack—­and read newspapers.  Then, if it’s fine, I walk about the streets, and see what new follies men are perpetrating.  And then—­’

He told of his favourite restaurants, of his unfashionable club, of a few houses where, at long intervals, he called or dined, of the Hodiernals, of a dozen other small matters.

‘What a life,’ sighed the listener, ‘compared with mine!’

‘We’ll remedy that, some day.’

‘When?’ she asked absently.

‘Wait just a little.—­You don’t wish to tell your father?’

’I daren’t tell him.  I doubt whether I shall ever dare to tell him face to face.’

‘Don’t think about it.  Leave it to me.’

’I must have letters from you—­but how?  Perhaps, if you could promise always to send them for the first post—­I generally go to the letter-box, and I could do so always—­whilst father is ill.’

This was agreed upon.  Nancy, whilst they were talking, took her hat from the table; at the same moment, Tarrant’s hand moved towards it.  Their eyes met, and the hand that would have checked her was drawn back.  Quickly, secretly, she drew the ring from her finger, hid it somewhere, and took her gloves.

‘Did you come by the back way?’ Tarrant asked, when he had bitten his lips for a sulky minute.

‘Yes, as you told me.’

He said he would walk with her into Chancery Lane; there could be no risk in it.

’You shall go out first.  Any one passing will suppose you had business with the solicitor underneath.  I’ll overtake you at Southampton Buildings.’