you only
put on just the tiniest touch."

Diving suddenly into the recesses of something, she produced an exiguous
round silver box. Prizing it open, she looked over her shoulder at the
Bigwigs, then placed her little finger on the contents of the little
box, and said very softly:

"You just take the merest touch, and you put it on like that, and it
keeps them together beautifully. Let me! Nobody'll see!"

Quite well understanding that this was all part of her grandmother's
passion for putting the best face upon things, and having no belief in
her eyebrows, Nedda bent forward; but in a sudden flutter of fear lest
the Bigwigs might observe the operation, she drew back, murmuring: "Oh,
Granny, darling! Not just now!"

At that moment the men came in, and, under cover of the necessary
confusion, she slipped away into the window.

It was pitch-black outside, with the moon not yet up. The bloomy,
peaceful dark out there! Wistaria and early roses, clustering in, had
but the ghost of color on their blossoms. Nedda took a rose in her
fingers, feeling with delight its soft fragility, its coolness against
her hot palm. Here in her hand was a living thing, here was a little
soul! And out there in the darkness were millions upon millions of other
little souls, of little flame-like or coiled-up shapes alive and true.

A voice behind her said:

"Nothing nicer than darkness, is there?"

She knew at once it was the one who was going to bite; the voice
was proper for him, having a nice, smothery sound. And looking round
gratefully, she said:

"Do you like dinner-parties?"

It was jolly to watch his eyes twinkle and his thin cheeks puff out. He
shook his head and muttered through that straggly moustache:

"You're a niece, aren't you? I know your father. He's a big man."

Hearing those words spoken of her father, Nedda flushed.

"Yes, he is," she said fervently.

Her new acquaintance went on:

"He's got the gift of truth--can laugh at himself as well as others;
that's what makes him precious. These humming-birds here to-night
couldn't raise a smile at their own tomfoolery to save their silly
souls."

He spoke still in that voice of smothery wrath, and Nedda thought: 'He
IS nice!'

"They've been talking about 'the Land'"--he raised his hands and ran
them through his palish hair--"'the Land!' Heavenly Father! 'The Land!'
Why! Look at that fellow!"

Nedda looked and saw a man, like Richard Coeur de Lion in the history