"Do you know," he muttered, his voice still shaking a little, "that
I believe sometimes I am afraid of you? How would you like to see
me there, eh, down at the bottom of that hungry sea? You watch
sometimes so fixedly. You'd miss me, wouldn't you? I am a good
master, you know. I pay well. You've been with me a good many
years. You were a different sort of woman when you first came."

"Yes," she admitted, "I was a different sort of woman."

"You don't remember those days, I suppose," he went on, "the days
when you had brown hair, when you used to carry roses about and
sing to yourself while you beat your work out of that wretched
typewriter?"

"No," she answered, "I do not remember those days. They do not
belong to me. It is some other woman you are thinking of."


Their eyes met. Mr. Fentolin turned away first. He struck the
bell at his elbow. She rose at once.

"Be off!" he ordered. "When you look at me like that, you send
shivers through me! You'll have to go; I can see you'll have to go.
I can't keep you any longer. You are the only person on the face
of the earth who dares to say things to me which make me think, the
only person who doesn't shrink at the sound of my voice. You'll
have to go. Send Sarson to me at once. You've upset me!"

She listened to his words in expressionless silence. When he had
finished, carrying her book in her hand, she very quietly moved