He stood smiling in frustration and amusement and irritation and admiration and love. She was so quick, and so lambent, like discernible fire, and so vindictive, and so rich in her dangerous flamy sensitiveness.

‘I’ve not said it at all,’ he replied, ‘if you will give me a chance to speak.’

‘No, no!’ she cried. ‘I won’t let you speak. You’ve said it, a satellite, you’re not going to wriggle out of it. You’ve said it.’

‘You’ll never believe now that I HAVEN’T said it,’ he answered. ‘I neither implied nor indicated nor mentioned a satellite, nor intended a satellite, never.’

‘YOU PREVARICATOR!’ she cried, in real indignation.

‘Tea is ready, sir,’ said the landlady from the doorway.

They both looked at her, very much as the cats had looked at them, a little while before.

‘Thank you, Mrs Daykin.’

An interrupted silence fell over the two of them, a moment of breach.

‘Come and have tea,’ he said.

‘Yes, I should love it,’ she replied, gathering herself together.

They sat facing each other across the tea table.

‘I did not say, nor imply, a satellite. I meant two single equal stars balanced in conjunction—’

‘You gave yourself away, you gave away your little game completely,’ she cried, beginning at once to eat. He saw that that she would take no further heed of his expostulation, so he began to pour the tea.

‘What GOOD things to eat!’ she cried.

‘Take your own sugar,’ he said.

He handed her her cup. He had everything so nice, such pretty cups and plates, painted with mauve–lustre and green, also shapely bowls and glass plates, and old spoons, on a woven cloth of pale grey and black and purple. It was very rich and fine. But Ursula could see Hermione’s influence.

‘Your things are so lovely!’ she said, almost angrily.

‘I like them. It gives me real pleasure to use things that are attractive in themselves—pleasant things. And Mrs Daykin is good. She thinks everything is wonderful, for my sake.’

‘Really,’ said Ursula, ‘landladies are better than wives, nowadays. They certainly CARE a great deal more. It is much more beautiful and complete here now, than if you were married.’

‘But think of the emptiness within,’ he laughed.

‘No,’ she said. ‘I am jealous that men have such perfect landladies and such beautiful lodgings. There is nothing left them to desire.’

‘In the house–keeping way, we’ll hope not. It is disgusting, people marrying for a home.’

‘Still,’ said Ursula, ‘a man has very little need for a woman now, has he?’

‘In outer things, maybe—except to share his bed and bear his children. But essentially, there is just the same need as there ever was. Only nobody takes the trouble to be essential.’

“Don’t imagine that I intended to kill him in cold blood. It would only have been rigid justice if I had done so, but I could not bring myself to do it. I had long determined that he should have a show for his life if he chose to take advantage of it. Among the many billets which I have filled in America during my wandering life, I was once janitor and sweeper-out of the laboratory at York College. One day the professor was lecturing on poisons, and he showed his students some alkaloid, as he called it, which he had extracted from some South American arrow poison, and which was so powerful that the least grain meant instant death. I spotted the bottle in which this preparation was kept, and when they were all gone, I helped myself to a little of it. I was a fairly good dispenser, so I worked this alkaloid into small, soluble pills, and each pill I put in a box with a similar pill made without the poison. I determined at the time that when I had my chance my gentlemen should each have a draw out of one of these boxes, while I ate the pill that remained. It would be quite as deadly and a good deal less noisy than firing across a handkerchief. From that day I had always my pill boxes about with me. and the time had now come when I was to use them.

“It was nearer one than twelve, and a wild, bleak night, blowing hard and raining in torrents. Dismal as it was outside. I was glad within — so glad that I could have shouted out from pure exultation. If any of you gentlemen have ever pined for a thing, and longed for it during twenty long years, and then suddenly found it within your reach, you would understand my feelings. I lit a cigar, and puffed at it to steady my nerves, but my hands were trembling and my temples throbbing with excitement. As I drove, I could see old John Ferrier and sweet Lucy looking at me out of the darkness and smiling at me, just as plain as I see you all in this room. All the way they were ahead of me, one on each side of the horse until I pulled up at the house in the Brixton Road.

“There was not a soul to be seen, nor a sound to be heard, except the dripping of the rain. When I looked in at the window, I found Drebber all huddled together in a drunken sleep. I shook him by the arm, ‘It’s time to get out.’ I said.

“‘All right, cabby.’ said he.

“I suppose he thought we had come to the hotel that he had mentioned, for he got out without another word, and followed me down the garden. I had to walk beside him to keep him steady, for he was still a little top-heavy. When we came to the door, I opened it and led him into the front room. I give you my word that all the way, the father and the daughter were walking in front of us.

“‘It’s infernally dark,’ said he, stamping about.

“‘We’ll soon have a light,’ I said, striking a match and putting it to a wax candle which I had brought with me. ‘Now, Enoch Drebber,’ I continued, turning to him, and holding the light to my own face, ‘who am l?’