"Do sit down--I want to talk to you," he said and pushed a
chair toward her.

She did not seem to see it, or, if she did, she deliberately
chose another seat. He came back to his own chair and
leaned his elbows on the blotter. She faced him from the
farther side of the table.

"You promised to let me hear from you now and then," he
began awkwardly, and with a sharp sense of his awkwardness.

A faint smile made her face more tragic. "Did I? There was
nothing to tell. I've had no history--like the happy
countries..."

He waited a moment before asking: "You ARE happy here?"

"I WAS," she said with a faint emphasis.

"Why do you say 'was'? You're surely not thinking of going?
There can't be kinder people anywhere." Darrow hardly knew
what he was saying; but her answer came to him with deadly
definiteness.

"I suppose it depends on you whether I go or stay."

"On me?" He stared at her across Owen's scattered papers.
"Good God! What can you think of me, to say that?"