Tears filled her eyes. He would have known it even if they had not
shone through the dusk, because his fingers felt the tremor in her
arms. She tried to speak, but finished, "How utterly silly words are!"

The face of young Mowbray was strange with emotion, pale but
brilliant-eyed, his long features bending to her. She was utter
receptivity. Neither knew until afterward how rare and perfect was
this moment.

"Anyway--we understand. We understand, Berthe."

"...As for Berthe," she said slowly, as they walked back, "her heart
will stay where you have put it, Peter. That's out of her power to
change. But the rest--I can't tell, yet----"

It was as if a finger had crossed Mowbray's face laterally under the
eyes and across his nostrils, leaving a gray welt.

"I know you belong to the moderns," he said, after a moment. "We men
belong to the ancients. We want a woman to wait and weep while we go
off to the wars."

"We understand," she kept repeating.... "And now, before you go, come
home with me and let me make you a cup of tea--just a cup of tea--
before you go."

He went with her, and, when his tea-cup was finished, he happened to
look into the bottom.

"What do you see?" she asked quickly, taking the cup.