"No," she said candidly. "I'm not large enough for that."
"It wouldn't have occurred to me that it was any indication of largeness."
"To be able to resign your own individuality, for the sake of the pleasure you can give other people? That seems to me rather large."
"It depends. I think I would rather concentrate my efforts, person on person, instead of spreading myself out like a vast impersonal plaster."
She laughed a little, though her eyes were very grave.
"You might apply your theory here and now. Go and sing to me, not a new song, but one of the old favorites."
Obediently he crossed the room to the piano where he sat for an hour, now singing, now stopping to comment on a song or to relate some of his experiences of the past two months. Later that night, when Miss Gannion was thinking over the talk of the evening, it suddenly occurred to her that he had made no reference at all to the summer. At length he rose to return to the fire.
"No," she objected. "There is one song still lacking. You've not sung _The Rosary_ yet."
His stride across the room never hesitated, although duller ears than his own could not have mistaken the wish in her voice.
"I have worn out _The Rosary_," he said briefly. "I shall have to let it rest for a while."
"It is the weakest kind of sentimentality, Miss Gannion. The song itself amounts to very little; it is merely a question of the key."
"I am sorry," she repeated, still a little sadly. "I have cared a good deal for the song."
Thayer made no answer, and she sat looking up at him with a steady wishfulness which made him uneasy. Her next words, though chosen by chance, increased his uneasiness.
"Have you seen Miss Dane, since you came back?"
His steady eyes met hers without wavering.
"I don't quite understand what you mean by the question."
Miss Gannion varied the form of her words.
"And yet, I don't think Beatrix is happy," Miss Gannion said, half to herself.
"How can she be? Beatrix is not dense. She thinks things, and she must know the uncertainty of the future."
"But I thought it was quite certain." There was a level monotony in Thayer's accent.
"You think Mr. Lorimer has really reformed and is out of danger?" Miss Gannion asked quickly.
"I wish he had," Thayer answered half involuntarily.