"'Betty,' he said, 'are you happy, quite happy, about--everything?'

"'Oh yes!' I said. 'Oh yes, Professor Fowler!' The curious thing about
it was that I spoke the truth when I considered it seriously.

"He said, 'Then that's all right.' Then he laughed a little and said,
'Do you always call me Professor Fowler, even when you shut your door on
the world at night and are all alone with God and the silence?'

"'And Claudia Jones,' I added, stupidly.

"He considered that seriously and said, 'I didn't know about Claudia
Jones; she may inhibit even the silence and the other ingredient. I
suppose you call me Teacher.'

"I cried out at that. 'I might call you _cher maître_, as they do her.'

"He said, 'That may do for the present.'

"'We looked into the fire and the lilacs filled the pause as adequately
as Chopin could have done. All at once he got up and came over to me--it
seemed the most natural thing in the world--across that wilderness of
sofa.

"'I suppose,' he said, 'that you won't let me off that promise.'

"'No, no!' I cried, all my old panic flooding over me again. I threw my
hands out, and suddenly he had caught them in his and was holding me
half away from him, and he was saying, in that tragic voice of his: