"Do you not like to hear the cuckoo, Miss Bodkin?" said Diamond, softly, speaking almost in her ear. She started, and turned her head towards him. "Yes; no. I like it, although it makes me sad. I like it because it makes me sad perhaps." "All sights, and sounds, and scents seem to me to be combined this evening into something sweeter than words can say." "It is a fine evening, and the cuckoo is calling from Pudcombe Woods, and my hyacinths are of a very good sort. It seems to me that words can manage to say that much with distinctness!" "What a pity," thought Diamond, "that head overshadows heart in this attractive woman! She is too keen, too cool, too critical. A woman without softness and sentiment is an unpleasant phenomenon. And I think she has grown harder in her manner than she used to be." Then the reflection crossed his mind that her health had been more frail and uncertain than usual of late, and that she bore much physical suffering with high courage; and the little prick of resentment he had begun to feel was at once mollified. He answered aloud, with a slow smile, "Why, yes, words may manage to say all that. I wonder if I may ask you a question? It is one I have long wished to ask." "You may, certainly." "There are questions that should not be asked." "I will trust you not to ask any such." "Now when she looks and speaks like that, she is adorable!" thought Diamond, meeting the soft light of Minnie's lovely, pathetic eyes, which fell immediately before his own. "I wish I might have you for a friend, Miss Bodkin," he said. "I think you have your wish. I thought you knew you had it." "Ah, yes; you are always good, and kind, and--and--but you--I will make a clean breast of it, and pay you the compliment of telling you the truth. I have thought latterly that you were hardly so cordial, so frank in your kindness to me as you once were. It would matter nothing to me in another person, but in you, a little shade of manner matters a great deal. I don't believe there is another human being to whom I would say so much. For I am--as perhaps you know--a man little given to thrust myself where I am not welcome." "You are about the proudest and most distant person I ever knew, and require to be very obviously implored before you condescend to easy friendship with anyone." Minnie laughed, as she spoke, a little low rippling laugh, which she ended with a forced cough, to hide the sob in her throat. "No; not proud. You misjudge me; but it is true that I dread, almost more than anything else, being deemed intrusive." "If that fear has prevented you from putting the question to which you have so long desired an answer, pray ask it forthwith."