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Rh could only be to go. A sound from the "party up" came down at that moment, and she took it so clearly as a call that, for a sign of separation, she passed straight to the stairs. "Good-bye!"

The young man let her reach the foot, but then, though the greatest width of the hall now divided them, spoke, anxiously and nervously, as if the point she had just made brought them still more together. "I think I 'feel' it, you know; but it's simply you—your presence, as I may say, and the remarkable way you put it—that make me. I'm afraid that in your absence" He struck a match to smoke again.

It gave her time apparently to make out something to pause for. "In my absence?"

He lit his cigarette. "I may come back"

"Come back?" she took him almost sharply up. "I should like to see you not!"

He smoked a moment. "I mean to my old idea"

She had quite turned round on him now. "Your old idea?"

He faced her over the width still between them. "Well—that one could give it up."

Her stare, at this, fairly filled the space. "Give up Covering? How in the world—or why?"