our ago! I _did_ look nice
_then_, if you like."

"Why nicer than now?"--(with a puzzled smile that both plays about his
bearded lips and gayly shines in his steel-gray eyes).

"Oh, never mind! never mind!" reply I, in some confusion, "it is a long
story; it is of no consequence, but I _did_."

He does not press for an explanation, for which I am obliged to him.

"Nancy!" he says, with a sort of hesitating joy, a diffident triumph in
his voice, "do you know, I believe you have kept your promise! I
believe, I _really_ believe, that you are a little glad to see me!"

"Are _you_ glad to see _me_, is more to the purpose?" return I,
descending out of heaven with a pout, and returning to the small
jealousies and acerbities of earth, and to the recollection of that yet
unexplained alighting at Aninda's gate.

"_Am I?_"

He seems to think that no asseverations, no strong adjectives or
intensifying adverbs, no calling upon sun and moon and stars to bear
witness to his gladness, can increase the force of those two tiny words,
so he adds none.

"I wonder, then," say I, in a rather sneaky and shamefaced manner,
mumbling and looking down, "that you were not in a greater hurry to get
to me?"

"_In a greater hurry!_" he repeats, in an accent of acute surprise.
"Why, child, what are you talking about? Since we landed, I have neither
slept nor eaten. I drove straight across London, and have been in the
train ever since."

"But--between--this--and the--station?" suggest I, slowly, having taken
hold of one of the buttons of his coat; the very one that in former
difficulties I used always to resort to.

"You mean about my walking up?" he says readily, and without the
slightest trace of guilty consciousness, indeed with a distinct and open
look of pleasure; "but, my darling, how could I tell how long she would
keep me? poor little woman!" (beginning to laugh and to put back the
hair from his tanned forehead). "I am afraid I did not bless her when I
saw her standing at her gate! I had half a mind to ask her whether
another time would not do as well, but she looked so eager to hear about
her husband--you know I have been seeing him at St. Thomas--such a
wistful little face--and I knew that she could not keep me more than ten
minutes; and, altogether when I thought of her loneliness and my own
luck--"

He breaks off.

"Are you so sure she _is_ lonely?" I say, with an innocent air of asking
for information, and still working h