CHAPTER III

Very soon tea was brought in. The homely service of the meal, and
Robert's plain clothes, seemed to demand some sort of explanation. It
was she who provided the opening.

"Will your wife be long away?" she enquired.

Tallente looked at his guest thoughtfully. She was pouring out tea from
an ordinary brown earthenware pot with an air of complete absorption in
her task. The friendliness of her seemed somehow to warm the atmosphere
of the room, even as her sympathy had stolen into the frozen places of
his life. For the moment he ignored her question. His eyes appraised
her critically, reminiscently. There was something vaguely familiar in
the frank sweetness of her tone and manner.

"I am going to make the most idiotically commonplace remark," he said.
"I cannot believe that this is the first time we have met."

"It isn't," she replied, helping herself to strawberry

"Are you in earnest?" he asked, puzzled.

"Do you mean that I have spoken to you?"

"Absolutely!"

"Not only that but you have made me a present."