The young lady on whom his eyes were fastened from afar did not see him. She came at her usual step, a happy mean between quick and slow, accompanied by a hatless serving-woman carrying a music-roll. She looked straight before her, but her glance was absent. The passers could not but notice her,--she had beauty enough for that, and was besides conspicuous in wearing a costume entirely white,--but she was not noticing them or the eyes that turned to keep her a moment longer in sight. She looked rather shut in herself, rather silent; not really proud and cold, but proud and cold as the feeling and modest and young have to look if they are to keep their sacred precincts from the intrusions of curiosity. The young man approaching questioned her face to see if it were sad. No, as far as he could tell, she was not in any way troubled. At the same time he knew that it was neither a face nor a nature to be easily read. Still, not to find her visibly sad comforted him. She did not recognize the young man till he was almost near enough to touch her, and she had heard her name called, "Brenda!" Then her face showed a genuine, if moderate, pleasure. "Gerald!" "What are you doing?" he asked, with the freedom of a familiarity reaching back over long years. He shortened his step to keep time with hers, which she at the same moment lengthened. "I have been for my singing-lesson." "And where are you going?" "Home." "I haven't seen you for ages." "You haven't come. One never sees you, one never meets you anywhere any more." Her English was different from the ordinary in having occasional Italian turns and intonations. His partook of the same defect, but in a lesser degree. "But I have come," he stood up for himself, "and you were all out except Lily. Didn't she tell you I was there? We had a long talk. She told me her plans for the future. She is going to keep a school for poor children. We discussed their diet and their flannels and every point of their bringing-up. We invented things to do on holidays to give them a good time. There is only one thing I can see leaving a doubt of this school coming into being. It is that Lily has moments, she confessed to me, of thinking almost equally well of a castle with a moat and drawbridge and a page to walk before her carrying her prayer-book on a cushion. She's a funny young one." "It's partly Fräulein." "How are they all?" "Well, thank you. At least, I suppose they are well." She gave a slight laugh at the humor of this. "You could hardly imagine how little I see of them." "What has happened?" "They have been going around with some new people, some Americans. They have been helping them to shop, and showing them the way one does things over here. Mother, you know, is always so ready." "Your mother is a dear." "Leslie is just like her. But I am sure they both enjoy it, too. They have not been home to lunch for a week." "And you?"