After dinner he sought her out. She had known that would happen: she had been avoiding it for weeks, but it was useless to play at hide-and-seek with the inevitable, and she calmly watched him approach.

“Why did you laugh?” he asked at once, in his old, angry fashion. “You were laughing at me.”

“No, I smiled.”

“Ah, you’re not so free with your smiles that they have no meaning.”

“Perhaps not, but I don’t know what the meaning was.”

“I believe you’ve been laughing at me ever since I came back.”

“Indeed, I haven’t. Why should I?”

“God knows,” he answered with a shrug; “I never do understand what people laugh at.”

“You’re too self-conscious, Francis.”

“Only with you,” he said.