The stranger tossed a franc to the woman before Daphne’s hand could get to the bottom of her pocket, and the bread was forthcoming—a large hunch off a long loaf. Daphne began eagerly to feed the fish. They were capital fun, disputing vehemently for her bounty, huge gray creatures which looked centuries old—savage, artful, vicious exceedingly. She gave them each a name. One she called Francis, another Henry, another Diana, another Catherine. She was as pleased and amused as a child, now throwing her bit of bread as far as her arm could fling it, and laughing merrily at the eager rush of competitors, now luring them close to the rails, and smiling down at the gray snouts yawning for their prey. ‘Do you think they would eat me if I were to tumble in among them?’ asked Daphne. ‘Greedy creatures! They seem ravenous enough for anything. There! they have devoured all my bread.’ ‘Shall I buy you some more?’ ‘Please, no. This kind of thing might go on for ever. They are insatiable. You would be ruined.’ ‘Shall we go under the trees?’ ‘If you like. But don’t you think this sunshine delicious? It is so nice to bask. I think I am rather like a cat in my enjoyment of the sun.’ ‘Your friend seems to have had enough of it,’ said Nero, glancing towards a sheltered bench to which Miss Dibb had discreetly withdrawn herself. ‘Martha! I had almost forgotten her existence. The carp are so absorbing.’ ‘Let us stay in the sunshine. We can rejoin your friend presently. She has taken out her needlework, and seems to be enjoying herself.’ ‘Another strip of her everlasting counterpane,’ said Daphne. ‘That girl’s persevering industry is maddening. It makes one feel so abominably idle. Would you be very shocked to know that I detest needlework?’ ‘I should as soon expect a butterfly to be fond of needlework as you,’ answered Nero. ‘Let me see your hand.’ She had taken off her glove to feed the carp, and her hand lay upon the iron rail, dazzlingly white in the sunshine; Nero took it up in his, so gently, so reverently, that she could not resent the action. He took it as a priest or physician might have taken it: altogether with a professional or scientific air. ‘Do you know that I am a student of chiromancy?’ he asked. ‘How should I, when I don’t know anything about you? And I don’t even know what chiromancy is.’ ‘The science of reading fate and character from the configuration of the hand.’ ‘Why, that is what gipsies pretend to do,’ cried Daphne. ‘You surely cannot believe in such nonsense.’ ‘I don’t know that my belief goes very far; but I have found the study full of interest, and more than once I have stumbled upon curious truths.’ ‘So do the most ignorant gipsy fortune-tellers,’ retorted Daphne. ‘People who are always guessing must sometimes guess right. But you may tell my fortune all the same, please; it will be more amusing than the carp.’