"It isn't a very warm welcome," she remarked, a little wistfully.
"You have taken me by surprise," he reminded her. "I had not the slightest idea of your coming."
"I know that," she sighed. "I suppose I ought not to have hoped for anything more. You've never been any different to me than to any of the others. You treat us all, men and women, just alike. You are gracious or cold, just according to how much we can help. I sometimes wonder, Mr. Jocelyn Thew, whether you have a heart at all."
For a single moment he looked at her kindly. His hand even patted hers. It was a curious revelation. He was a kindly ordinary human being.
"Ah, Nora," he said, "I am not quite so bad as that! But for many years I have had a great, driving impulse inside me, and at the back of it the most wonderful incentive in all the world. You know what that is, Nora—or perhaps you don't. To a woman it would be love, I suppose. To a man it is hate."
She drew a little further away from him, as though something which had flamed in his eyes for a moment had frightened her.
"Yes," she murmured, "you are like that."
Jocelyn Thew was himself again almost at once.
"Since we understand one another, Nora," he said, a little more kindly, "let me tell you that I am really very glad to see you, although you did give me rather a shock just now. I want you, if you will, to turn your head to the left. You see those two men—one seated in the easy-chair and the other on its arm?"
"I see them."