_Two and a half years' waiting, and this was the meeting_! She drew herself up, with the little air of dignity which she knew so well how to a.s.sume, and waved him to a seat.

"Won't you sit down? I will give you some tea. It is all ready, and the kettle is boiling. When did you arrive in town?"

"Two hours ago. I went straight to my hotel to write some letters, and then came along here. ... This is your brother's apartment? Nice little place! It's good news that he is better! Hard luck on him to be bowled over like that!"

The accent, the intonation carried Pixie's thoughts irresistibly towards another speaker, whose memory war a.s.sociated with her own first meeting with Stanor. On the spur of the moment she mentioned her name.

"Where is Honor Ward? Is she in London, too?"

Stanor started; over his features pa.s.sed a quiver as of anxiety or dread. He glanced across the fireplace, and the new keenness in his eyes became still more marked.

"Er--no! She stopped half way. Later on ... perhaps--"

"She is quite well?"

Again a moment's hesitation.

"Fairly well, only ... Very tired."

"I don't wonder she is tired; she does so much. Always rushing about after something new. They seem very restless people in America."

"They're alive, anyway; they don't rust! They're bound to get the most that's possible out of life, and they get it! It shakes a fellow up to get out of the rut here and have a taste of their methods."

"You like it--better than _home_?" Pixie paused, teapot in hand, to cast upon him a glance full of patriotic reproach, whereat he laughed and shrugged his shoulders.

"Isn't home the place where one settles down, and which feels to be most congenial?"

"You find America more congenial than England?"

He shrugged again, and the old gleam of laughter showed in his eyes.

"Now look here, isn't it bad luck to begin asking embarra.s.sing questions straight away off? I hoped I was going to avoid this point! If you must have the truth--I _do_! America suits me!"--his smile was full of complacence--"I suit America. That's not by any means a sure thing.

Many Englishmen throw up the sponge and return home. They can't adapt themselves, don't _want_ to adapt themselves. In my case I had had no business experience in England, so I began with an open mind without prejudice, and--it _went_: I like the life, I like the people. I like the climate. The climate is answerable for a lot of the extra energy which you over here call 'restlessness.' You want to do just about twice as much beneath those skies!" He cast an impatient glance towards the window. "It's all so _grey_! ... I've had a headache straight on the last two days."

"Tea's ready now; it will do you good. There are hot scones in that dish," Pixie said quietly. The greyness of the street seemed to have entered the room--to have entered her heart. It was _all_ grey. ...

"We knew, of course, that you _must_ like it, when you stayed so long."

Now there was something which was _not grey_. Stanor's face flushed a painful red; he looked at his cup, at the floor, in the fire, at anything but in Pixie's face. His voice was hard with repressed embarra.s.sment.

"Er--just so; you would, of course! There was work on hand. I waited to see it through. When a man has spent two years in the same place so many claims arise, in social life as well as in work. It is difficult for him to break away at a moment's notice. He is hardly his own master."

"I'm sure it is. And when there was work you were quite right to stay on. It would have been wrong to have left it unfinished."

Stanor, looked up sharply, met clear, honest eyes, which looked back into his without a trace of sarcasm. She _meant_ it! Voice and look alike were transparently genuine. At that moment she was essentially the Pixie of old, the Pixie to whom it came naturally to believe the best. The flush on Stanor's cheeks deepened as he realised the nature of the "work" which had made his excuse. His voice deepened with the first real note of intimacy.

"That's like you, Pixie! You always understood. ... And now tell me about yourself. What's happened to you since I heard last? Six months ago, was it? No! barely four. Didn't you write for Christmas? Been jogging along as usual at home, playing games with the babies?"

"Yes; just jogging," said Pixie. Then of a sudden her eyes flashed.

"'Over here' we don't find the 'best of life' in a _rush_! It comes to some of us quite satisfactorily in a jog! 'I guess,' as you say, that my life as been as much 'worth while' as if I'd spent it in a round of pink luncheons and green teas, as your American friends seem to do."

The unexpected happened, and, instead of protesting, Stanor sighed, and looked of a sudden grave and depressed.

"You're right there, Pixie; that's so, if you are built the right way!

But some of us--" He checked himself, and began afresh in a voice of enforced enthusiasm. "Well!--and then you came up here to nurse your brother, and found the Runkle already in possession. I _was_ surprised to read about that in your letter at Liverpool. Odd, isn't it, how things come about? And how _is_ the old fellow?"

Again Pixie's eyes sent out a flash. How was it that every fresh thing that Stanor said seemed to hurt her in a new place?

"Considering his great years and infirmities, the old fellow seems surprisingly well."

"Halloo, what's this?" Stanor stared in surprise. "Said the wrong thing, have I? What have I said? He seems old, you know, if he isn't actually so in years. I used to look upon him as a patriarch. Not so much his looks as his character. Such a sombre old beggar!"

"He wasn't sombre with _us_!"

Memory flashed back pictures of Stephen's face as he sat in the arm-chair by the fire, listening to those impromptu concerts which had enlivened Pat's convalescence. Pixie saw him as he leaned forward in his chair, waving his hand baton-like, heard his voice, joining l.u.s.tily in the "Matches" chorus. In that very room--in the very chair in which Stanor now sat. ... What centuries seemed to have lolled by, between that day, and this!

"Wasn't he? That's good! I'm glad to hear that," Stanor said perfunctorily. "It takes time, of course, to get out of invalid ways.

I shall have to be running down to see him one of these days."

"Oh, of course; he'll expect you. And then--then you'll begin your work over here. In London, I suppose?"

"I ... er ... the firm is in town. There--er--there will be a lot to arrange." Suddenly Stanor leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, his eyes searching her face. "Pixie, this is an odd sort of conversation for our first meeting! ... We've got wrong somehow. ... Can't we get right? Why waste time on generalities. ... Are you _glad_ to see me back, Pixie?"

"I am!" Pixie's eyes gazed back without a flicker. "When I got your letter I was--thankful! I think it was--time--you came back."

"Have you missed me, Pixie, while, I've been away?"

Now she hesitated, but her eyes remained steady and candid.

"It had been such a little time, you know; and you had never stayed with us at home. I could hardly _miss_ you out of my life, but I ...

_thought_ of you!"

"Did you, Pixie? Did you, little Pixie? ... I wonder _what_ you thought!"

Pixie did not answer that question. The answer would have been too long, too complicated. She smiled, a wistful little smile, and turned away her head.

Then Stanor rose. She heard him rise, heard the c.h.i.n.k of the tea-things on the tray as he pressed upon it in rising, heard his footsteps pa.s.sing round the table towards her chair, heard in a sickening silence his summoning voice--

"Pixie!"

"Stanor!"

They looked at each other;--white, strained, tense.

"Pixie, will you marry me?"

"Yes, Stanor, I will. If you want me..."