Beecher did not resist. He recounted lightly, making little of the few passages at arms between him and Nan Charters, ending with a droll reproduction of his laughing exit, cured and disillusionized.

"Ah, my poor Teddy!" said Emma Fornez, shaking her head. "Everything you say proves what I feared."

"What?"

"You are in love; you are beyond hope!

"What, after I've told you this?"

"Exactly. She asked you to telephone, you didn't. Why? Because you are in love—you are afraid."

"Emma, I will tell you the truth," he said, with an excusing shrug.

"Aha!"

"I was attracted—"

"Good!"