He had asked her for some time to promise him her first free night; but she had not, till now, reached the necessary pitch of indifference to herself. She would have been willing enough to make herself useful to anyone who really needed her—it would have given her life a brief appearance of meaning—but with Scot-Hallard it had seemed so certain that any woman out of three or four would do. His invitations were, of course, all conveyed or refused by letter; but one night, when he had remained at the hospital unusually late, they had passed one another on an empty section of the stairs; he had paused for a minute and made as if to speak, and it seemed to her that he remained silent less from caution than from hurt pride. To find him even so far assailable by her had touched her; she had smiled as she passed, and next day, when he wrote asking her again, had accepted. While she dressed herself she wished, as she wished every day, that she could afford to get herself a new dress, new underclothes, new powder, a new brush and comb, everything new that she had worn or used with Mic.
