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 “I saw her in Monte Carlo,” said Susie. “I thought you might like to hear about her.”

“I don’t see that it can do any good,” he answered.

Susie made a little hopeless gesture. She was beaten.

“Shall we go?” she said.

“You are not angry with me?” he asked. “I know you mean to be kind. I’m very grateful to you.”

“I shall never be angry with you,” she smiled.

Arthur paid the bill, and they threaded their way among the tables. At the door she held out her hand.

“I think you do wrong in shutting yourself away from all human comradeship,” she said, with that good-humoured smile of hers. “You must know that you will only grow absurdly morbid.”

“I go out a great deal,” he answered patiently, as though he reasoned with a child. “I make a point of offering myself distractions from my work. I go to the opera two or three times a week.”

“I thought you didn’t care for music.”

“I don’t think I did,” he answered. “But I find it rests me.”

He spoke with a weariness that was appalling. Susie had never beheld so plainly the torment of a soul in pain.

“Won’t you let me come to the opera with you one night?” she asked. “Or does it bore you to see me?”

“I should like it above all things,” he smiled,