never have a room like this, an hour like this by a clear fire, with
thick curtains drawn--and a friend."

As she said the last three words, her voice had a really beautiful sound
in it, and a sound that was surely beautiful because of some moral
quality it contained or suggested. More than a whole essay of Emerson's
did this mere sound suggest friendship. The leaves of the book of this
woman's attractions were being turned one by one for Isaacson. And of
all her attractions her voice perhaps was the greatest.

The waiter came in with tea. When he had gone, the Doctor could speak.

But he scarcely knew what to say. Very seldom was his self-possession
disturbed. To-day he felt at a disadvantage. The depression, perhaps
chiefly physical, which had lately been brooding over him, and which had
become acute at the concert, deepened about him to-day, made him feel
morally small. Mrs. Chepstow's cheerfulness seemed like height. For a
moment in all ways she towered above him, and even her bodily height
seemed like a mental triumph, or a triumph of her will over his.

"But this is only autumn," he said.

"We can pretend it is winter."

She gave him his cup of tea, with the same gesture that had charmed
Nigel on the day when he first visited her. Then she handed him a plate
with little bits of lemon on it.

"I've found out your tastes, you see. I know you never take milk."