entertaining me under the prevailing conditions, but they all looked
gloomy, and reserved, and forbidding. So I sat down in a very big chair,
and reflected that if there were to be many days like this it might be
as well to ask somebody cheerful to come and sit opposite me in all
those other big chairs that were looking so unusually gigantic and
empty. When the Man of Wrath came in to tea there were such heavy clouds
that the room was quite dark, and he peered about for a moment before he
saw me. I suppose in the gloom of the big room I must have looked rather
lonely, and smaller than usual buried in the capacious chair, for when
he finally discovered me his face widened into an inappropriately
cheerful smile.

"Well, my dear," he said genially, "how very cold it is."

"Did you come in to say that?" I asked.

"This tempest is very unusual in the summer," he proceeded; to which I
made no reply of any sort.

"I did not see you at first amongst all these chairs and cushions. At
least, I saw you, but it is so dark I thought you were a cushion."

Now no woman likes to be taken for a cushion, so I rose and began to
make tea with an icy dignity of demeanour.

"I am afraid I shall be forced to break my promise not to invite any one
here," he said, watching my face as he spoke. My heart gave a distinct
leap--so small is the constancy and fortitude of woman. "But it will
only be for one night." My heart sank down as though it were lead. "And
I have just received a telegram that it will be to-night." Up went my