"Ah—here's tea. But you'd rather have a cocktail?" Mrs. Pulsifer said. They had returned to the circular room; by the fire stood a table with cups of thin porcelain around a shining urn. Vance said he'd rather have tea. No one had ever offered it to him at that hour, and it amused him to watch her slim hands moving over the tray, shaking the tea into the teapot, regulating the flame of the urn. It reminded him of a scene in an English novel he had read at the Willows. He began to think of his own novel again, and had to rouse himself to hear what Mrs. Pulsifer was saying—something hurried and confused about being lonely, and hating her riches because they shut her off from the only people she cared to see … and worshipping genius, and wondering if he wouldn't promise to be her great great friend, and come often to see her, and tell her all her faults, and let her talk to him about herself—which, it seemed to Vance, was just what she had been doing for the last hour… . He mumbled that he was ever so grateful, and would be glad if she'd let him come back for another look at the pictures; but she said if it was only to see the pictures that he wanted to come he was like everybody else, and didn't care for her but for her house, and what she wanted was a friend who would feel the same about her if she lived in a hovel; but she supposed she wasn't clever enough to interest the only kind of people who interested her, and must just make the best of this dreadful loneliness that her money seemed to condemn her to… . Her eyes filled, and for a moment she seemed to break her unreality and become human. "Oh, don't say that—you mustn't, you know—" he began, putting down his cup and moving nearer; but as he did so he caught sight of a clock over her shoulder, and exclaimed: "God, I've only just got time to catch my train—Sorry … I've got to run for it… ." Her face changed again, narrowing into distrust and resentment. Why did he have to catch that particular train? Weren't there plenty of others? She forced a smile to add that people always made excuses like that when they were bored with you, and she supposed she'd bored him … or else why wouldn't he stay? But Vance remembered a promise to get back with a new tonic for Laura Lou. No, he couldn't, he said; there was no train till much later, and he had his work… . "Ah, your work; how I envy people with work, work like yours, I mean… ." Her face softened, she left her hand in his. "You'll really come again soon, won't you? You'll come next week? You shall have the pictures all to yourself; I'll hide away, and you won't even see me," she assured him laughingly; and he thanked her and fled.