“I’m afraid I haven’t.”  He moved in his chair as if in physical discomfort.  “Do you think I ought—­so soon?  There are always plenty of—­houses, aren’t there?”

“Not plenty of desirable ones.  Do you think you must live in East Elgin?”

“It would be rather more convenient.”

“Because there are two semidetached in River Street, just finished, that look very pretty and roomy.  I thought when I saw them that one of them might be what you would like.”

“Thank you,” he said, and tried not to say it curtly.

“They belong to White, the grocer.  River Street isn’t East Elgin, but it is that way, and it would be a great deal pleasanter for—­for her.”

“I must consider that, of course.  You haven’t been in them?  I should hope for a bright sitting-room, and a very private study.”

If Advena was aware of any unconscious implication, the pair of eyes she turned upon him showed no trace of satisfaction in it.

“No, I haven’t.  But if I could be of any use I should be very glad to go over them with you, and—­”

She stopped involuntarily, checked by the embarrassment in his face, though she had to wait for his words to explain it.

“I should be most grateful.  But—­but might it not be misunderstood?”

She bent her head over her work, and one of those instants passed between them which he had learned to dread.  They were so completely the human pair as they sat together, withdrawn in comfort and shelter, absorbed in homely matters and in each other; it was easy to forget that they were only a picture, a sham, and that the reality lay further on, in the early spring.  It must have been hard for him to hear without resentment that she was ready to help him to make a home for that reality.  He was fast growing instructed in women, although by a post-graduate course.

Advena looked up.  “Possibly,” she said, calmly, and their agitation lay still between them.  He was silently angry; the thing that stirred without their leave had been sweet.

“No,” said Advena, “I can’t go, I suppose.  I’m sorry.  I should have liked so much to be of use.”  She looked up at him appealingly, and sudden tears came and stood in her eyes, and would perhaps have undone his hurt but that he was staring into the fire.

“How can you be of use,” he said, almost irritably, “in such ways as those?  They are not important, and I am not sure that for us they are legitimate.  If you were about to be—­married”—­he seemed to plunge at the word—­“I should not wish either to hasten you or to house you.  I should turn my back on it all.  You should have nothing from me,” he went on, with a forced smile, “but my blessing, delivered over my shoulder.”

“I am sure they are not important,” she said humbly—­privately all unwilling to give up her martyrdom, “but surely they are legitimate.  I would like to help you in every little way I can.  Don’t you like me in your life?  You have said that I may stay.”