“Say yes!” he urged.  “I don’t often ask for favors.”

Still she hesitated; then her decision was made for her.  With a new boldness he touched her arm, drawing her forward gently but decisively towards Chilcote’s rooms.

In the study a fire burned brightly, the desk was laden with papers, the lights were nicely adjusted; even the chairs were in their accustomed places.  Loder’s senses responded to each suggestion.  It seemed but a day since he had seen it last.  It was precisely as he had left it—­the niche needing but the man.

To hide his emotion he crossed the floor quickly and drew a chair forward.  In less than six hours he had run up and down the scale of emotions.  He had looked despair in the face, till the sudden sight of Chilcote had lifted him to the skies; since then, surprise had assailed him in its strongest form; he had known the full meaning of the word “risk”; and from every contingency he had come out conqueror.  He bent over the chair as he pulled it forward, to hide the expression in his eyes.

“Sit down,” he said, gently.

Eve moved towards him.  She moved slowly, as if half afraid.  Many emotions stirred her—­distrust, uncertainty, and a curious half-dominant, half-suppressed questioning that it was difficult to define.  Loder remembered her shrinking coldness, her reluctant tolerance on the night of his first coming, and his individuality, his certainty of power, kindled afresh.  Never had he been so vehemently himself; never had Chilcote seemed so complete a shadow.

As Eve seated herself, he moved forward and leaned over the back of her chair.  The impulse that had filled him in his interview with Renwick, that had goaded him as he drove to the reception, was dominant again.

“I tried to say something as we drove to the Bramfells’ to-night,” he began.  Like many men who possess eloquence for an impersonal cause, he was brusque, even blunt, in the stating of his own case.  “May I hark back, and go on from where I broke off?”

Eve half turned.  Her face was still puzzled and questioning.  “Of course.”  She sat forward again, clasping her hands.

He looked thoughtfully at the back of her head, at the slim outline of her shoulders, the glitter of the diamonds about her neck.

“Do you remember the day, three weeks ago, that we talked together in this room?  The day a great many things seemed possible?”

This time she did not look round.  She kept her gaze upon the fire.

“Do you remember?” he persisted, quietly.  In his college days men who heard that tone of quiet persistence had been wont to lose heart.  Eve heard it now for the first time, and, without being aware, answered to it.

“Yes, I remember,” she said.