d at any rate have made his acquaintance over it,
and she might indeed leave the rest to their thoroughness. He would
already have known, he would already have heard; her appeal, she was
more and more sure, wouldn't have come to him as a revelation. He had
already talked it over with _her_, with Miss Lindeck, to whom the
Frenches, in their fortress, had never been accessible, and his whole
attitude bristled, to Julia's eyes, with the betrayal of her hand, her
voice, her pressure, her calculation. His tone, in fact, as he talked,
fairly thrust these things into her face. "But you must see her for
yourself. You'll judge her. You'll love her. My dear child"--he
brought it all out, and if he spoke of children he might, in his
candor, have been himself infantine--"my dear child, she's the person
to do it for you. Make it over to her; but," he laughed, "of course
see her first! Couldn't you," he wound up--for they were now near
their gate, where she was to leave him--"couldn't you just simply make
us meet him, at tea say, informally; just _us_ alone, as pleasant old
friends of whom you'd have so naturally and frankly spoken to him: and
then see what we'd _make_ of that?"

It was all in his expression; he couldn't keep it out of that, and his
shining good looks couldn't: ah, he was so fatally much too handsome
for her! So the gap showed just there, in his admirable mask and
his admirable eagerness; the yawning little chasm showed where the
gentleman fell short. But she took this in, she took everything in,
she felt herself do it, she heard herself say, while they paused
before separation, that she quite saw the point of the meeting, as he
suggested, at her tea. She would propose it to Mr. French and would
let them know; and he must assuredly bring Miss Lindeck, bring her
"right away," bring her soon, bring _them_, his fiancee and her,
together somehow, and as quickly as possible--so that they _should_
be old friends before the tea. She would propose it to Mr. French,
propose it to Mr. French: that hummed in her ears as she went--after
she had really got away; hummed as if she were repeating it over,
giving it out to the passers, to the pavement, to the sky, and all as
in wild discord with the intense little concert of her music-box. The
extraordinary thing too was that she quite believed she should do it,
and fully meant to; desperately, fantastically passive--since she
almost reeled with it as she proceeded--she was capable o