Judith withdrew her hand.  I knelt on the hearthrug until the merry blaze and crackle of the wood assured me of successful effort.

“These are capital grates,” I said, cheerfully, drawing a comfortable arm-chair to the front of the fire.

“Excellent,” she replied, in a tone devoid of interest.

There was a long silence.  To me this is one of the great charms of human intercourse.  Is there not a legend that Tennyson and Carlyle spent the most enjoyable evenings of their lives enveloped in impenetrable silence and tobacco-smoke, one on each side of the hob?  A sort of Whistlerian nocturne of golden fog!

I offered Judith a cigarette.  She declined it with a shake of the head.  I lit one myself and leaning back contentedly in my chair watched her face in half-profile.  Most people would call her plain.  I can’t make up my mind on the point.  She is what is termed a negative blonde—­that is to say, one with very fair hair (in marvellous abundance—­it is one of her beauties), a sallow complexion and deep violet eyes.  Her face is thin, a little worn, that of the woman who has suffered—­temperament again!  Her mouth, now, as she looks into the new noisy flames, is drawn down at the corners.  Her figure is slight but graceful.  She has pretty feet.  One protruded from her skirt, and a slipper dangled from the tip.  At last it fell off.  I knew it would.  She has a craze for the minimum of material in slippers—­about an inch of leather (I suppose it’s leather) from the toe.  I picked the vain thing up and balanced it again on her stocking-foot.

“Will you do that eight years hence?” said Judith.

“My dear, as I’ve done it eight thousand times the last eight years, I suppose I shall,” I replied, laughing.  “I’m a creature of habit.”

“You may marry, Marcus.”

“God forbid!” I ejaculated.

“Some pretty fresh girl.”

“I abominate pretty fresh girls.  I would just as soon talk to a baby in a perambulator.”

“The women men are crazy to marry are not always those they particularly delight to converse with, my friend,” said Judith.

I lit another cigarette.  “I think the sex feminine has marriage on the brain,” I exclaimed, somewhat heatedly.  “My Aunt Jessica was worrying me about it the day before yesterday.  As if it were any concern of hers!”

Judith laughed below her breath and called me a simpleton.

“Why?” I asked.

“Because you haven’t got a temperament.”

This was a foolish answer, having no bearing on the question.  I told her so.  She replied that she was years older than I, and had learned the eternal relevance of all things.  I pointed out that she was years younger.

“How many heart-beats have you had in your life—­real, wild, pulsating heart-beats—­eternity in an hour?”

“That’s Blake,” I murmured.

“I’m aware of it.  Answer my question.”