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234 avenue was crowded with carriages, though the walk was comparatively free. In the clear frosty air the lights of the street sparkled and flashed gaily.

"Were you really glad to see me?" said Teresa slowly.

"Glad? If you knew how glad"

"But you'd rather I'd have come a little later—after she'd gone? I'm sure she would."

Basil sighed impatiently.

"How long since you began the picture?" Teresa asked meditatively.

"Oh, only a week or so. I'd only worked on it four times. Thank heaven, I haven't got to touch it again! She's going away, and I hope I shall never see her again."

His involuntary expression was too unrestrained, too savagely convincing. Teresa was silent, and drew her hand away. He began to talk, too quickly, about other things. She answered in the right places, and he began to think the other question had dropped; but she came back to it abruptly.

"I see now what you meant by saying you had missed me these months. … I might have known that your life would not stop just because mine did. … I have been half dead, it's true, but you—you could not be. But I did not think it was this. …"

"You're utterly mistaken. Whatever inter-