It was a surprise that, in this general harmony of circumstances, Mrs. Vervain should herself sound the first false note.

“You?” she exclaimed; and the book she held slipped from her hand.

It was crude, certainly; unless it were a touch of the finest art.  The difficulty of classifying it disturbed Thursdale’s balance.

“Why not?” he said, restoring the book.  “Isn’t it my hour?” And as she made no answer, he added gently, “Unless it’s some one else’s?”

She laid the book aside and sank back into her chair.  “Mine, merely,” she said.

“I hope that doesn’t mean that you’re unwilling to share it?”

“With you?  By no means.  You’re welcome to my last crust.”

He looked at her reproachfully.  “Do you call this the last?”

She smiled as he dropped into the seat across the hearth.  “It’s a way of giving it more flavor!”

He returned the smile.  “A visit to you doesn’t need such condiments.”

She took this with just the right measure of retrospective amusement.

“Ah, but I want to put into this one a very special taste,” she confessed.

Her smile was so confident, so reassuring, that it lulled him into the imprudence of saying, “Why should you want it to be different from what was always so perfectly right?”

She hesitated.  “Doesn’t the fact that it’s the last constitute a difference?”

“The last—­my last visit to you?”

“Oh, metaphorically, I mean—­there’s a break in the continuity.”

Decidedly, she was pressing too hard:  unlearning his arts already!

“I don’t recognize it,” he said.  “Unless you make me—­” he added, with a note that slightly stirred her attitude of languid attention.

She turned to him with grave eyes.  “You recognize no difference whatever?”

“None—­except an added link in the chain.”

“An added link?”

“In having one more thing to like you for—­your letting Miss Gaynor see why I had already so many.”  He flattered himself that this turn had taken the least hint of fatuity from the phrase.

Mrs. Vervain sank into her former easy pose.  “Was it that you came for?” she asked, almost gaily.

“If it is necessary to have a reason—­that was one.”

“To talk to me about Miss Gaynor?”

“To tell you how she talks about you.”

“That will be very interesting—­especially if you have seen her since her second visit to me.”

“Her second visit?” Thursdale pushed his chair back with a start and moved to another.  “She came to see you again?”

“This morning, yes—­by appointment.”

He continued to look at her blankly.  “You sent for her?”

“I didn’t have to—­she wrote and asked me last night.  But no doubt you have seen her since.”

Thursdale sat silent.  He was trying to separate his words from his thoughts, but they still clung together inextricably.  “I saw her off just now at the station.”