“Henry,” she said, cooingly, kneeling down beside him and taking his hand, “will you promise me something, please.  I am not clever like you, but I do know one splendid recipe for taking away pain; every time the thought of Sabine comes up to you and the old pictures you used to hold, look them squarely in the face, and then deliberately replace them with others that you can obtain—­the strange law of periodicity will be in motion and, if you have only will enough, gradually the pictures that can be yours will unconsciously have taken the place of the old ones which have caused you pain.  Is it not much better to do that than just to let yourself grieve—­surely it is more like a man?”

Henry looked at her, a little startled.  This idea had never presented itself to him.  Yes, it was certainly more like a man to try any measure than “just to grieve,” and what if there should be some truth in this suggestion—?  What did the “law of periodicity” mean?  What an American phrase!  How apt they were at coining expressive sentences.  He looked into the glowing ashes—­there he seemed to see in ruins the whole fabric of his dreams—­but if there was a law which brought thoughts back, and back again at the same hour each day, then Moravia was right:  he must blot out the old pictures and conjure up new ones—­but what could they be—?

“You are musing, Henry,” Moravia’s voice went on.  “Are you thinking over what I said?  I hope so, and you will find it is true.  See, I will tell you what to visualize there in the fire.  You are looking at a splendid English home, all peace and warmth, and you see yourself in it happy and surrounded by friends.  And you see yourself a great man, the center of political interest, and everything coming toward you that heart can desire.  It is awfully wanting in common sense to think because you cannot obtain one woman there are none others in the world.”

“Awfully,” agreed Henry—­suddenly taking in the attractive picture she made, seated there at his knees, her white hand holding his hand.  His thoughts wandered for a moment, as thought will do when the mind is overstrained; they wandered to the speculation of why American women should have such small and white hands, and then he brought himself back to the actual conversation.

“You mean to tell me,” he said, “that if every time I remember, when I am dwelling upon the subject which pains me, that I must make my thoughts turn to other things which give me pleasure, that gradually the new thoughts will banish the old?”

“Of course, I mean that,” Moravia told him.  “Everything comes in cycles; that is why people get into habits.  You just try, Henry; you can cure the habit of pain as easily as you can cure any habit.  It is all a question of will.”

She saw that she had created interest in his eyes, and rejoiced.  That crisis had passed! and it would be safe to go on.