"Only--the evenings," she added, noticing my query, yet rather avoiding
my eyes, "the evenings are--well, rather heavy sometimes, and I find it
difficult to keep awake."

"The strong air after London makes you drowsy," I suggested, "and you
like to get early to bed."

Frances turned and looked at me for a moment steadily. "On the contrary,
Bill, I dislike going to bed--here. And Mabel goes so early." She said
it lightly enough, fingering the disorder upon my dressing table in such
a stupid way that I saw her mind was working in another direction
altogether. She looked up suddenly with a kind of nervousness from the
brush and scissors.

"Billy," she said abruptly, lowering her voice, "isn't it odd, but I
hate sleeping alone here? I can't make it out quite; I've never felt
such a thing before in my life. Do you--think it's all nonsense?"

And she laughed, with her lips but not with her eyes; there was a note
of defiance in her I failed to understand.

"Nothing a nature like yours feels strongly is nonsense, Frances," I
replied soothingly.

But I, too, answered with my lips only, for another part of my mind was
working elsewhere, and among uncomfortable things. A touch of
bewilderment passed over me. I was not certain how best to continue. If
I laughed she would tell me no more, yet if I took her too seriously the
strings would tighten further. Instinctively, then, this flashed rapidly
across me: that something of what she felt, I had also felt, though