His tone betrayed so special a meaning that the words had a sound of
suddenness; yet there was always in Nanda's face that odd preparedness
of the young person who has unlearned surprise through the habit, in
company, of studiously not compromising her innocence by blinking at
things said. "How CAN I?" she asked, but appearing rather to take up the
proposal than to put it by.

"Can't you, CAN'T you?" He spoke pressingly and kept her hand. She shook
her head slowly, markedly; on which he continued: "You don't do justice
to Mr. Mitchy." She said nothing, but her look was there and it made him
resume: "Impossible?"

"Impossible." At this, letting her go, Mr. Longden got up; he pulled out
his watch. "We must go back." She had risen with him and they stood face
to face in the faded light while he slipped the watch away. "Well, that
doesn't make me wish it any less."

"It's lovely of you to wish it, but I shall be one of the people who
don't. I shall be at the end," said Nanda, "one of those who haven't."

"No, my child," he returned gravely--"you shall never be anything so
sad."

"Why not--if YOU'VE been?" He looked at her a little, quietly, and then,
putting out his hand, passed her own into his arm. "Exactly because I
have."

III

"Would you" the Duchess said to him the next day, "be for five minutes
awfully kind to my poor little niece?" The words were spoken in charming
entreaty as he issued from the house late on the Sunday afternoon--the
second evening of his stay, which the next morning was to bring to an
end--and on his meeting the speaker at one of the extremities of the
wide cool terrace. There was at this point a subsidiary flight of steps
by which she had just mounted from the grounds, one of her purposes
being apparently to testify afresh to the anxious supervision of little
Aggie she had momentarily suffered herself to be diverted from. This
young lady, established in the pleasant shade on a sofa of light
construction designed for the open air, offered the image of a patience
of which it was a questionable kindness to break the spell. It was that
beautiful hour when, toward the close of the happiest days of summer,
such places as the great terrace at Mertle present to the fancy a recall
of the banquet-hall deserted--deserted by the company lately gathered at
tea and now dispersed, according to affinities and combinations promptly
felt and perhaps quite as promptly criticised, either in quieter
ch