Mitchy’s grasp was already complete. “And he’s coming then to learn from you how far this is?” “Yes--very much.” Mitchy looked about for his hat. “So that of course I see my time’s about up, as you’ll want to be quite alone together.” Nanda glanced at the clock. “Oh you’ve a margin yet.” “But you don’t want an interval for your thinking--?” “Now that I’ve seen you?” Nanda was already very obviously thoughtful. “I mean if you’ve an important decision to take.” “Well,” she returned, “seeing you HAS helped me.” “Ah but at the same time worried you. Therefore--” And he picked up his umbrella. Her eyes rested on its curious handle. “If you cling to your idea that I’m frightened you’ll be disappointed. It will never be given you to reassure me.” “You mean by that that I’m primarily so solid--!” “Yes, that till I see you yourself afraid--!” “Well?” “Well, I won’t admit that anything isn’t exactly what I was prepared for.” Mitchy looked with interest into his hat. “Then what is it I’m to ‘leave’ to you?” After which, as she turned away from him with a suppressed sound and said, while he watched her, nothing else, “It’s no doubt natural for you to talk,” he went on, “but I do make you nervous. Good-bye--good-bye.” She had stayed him, by a fresh movement, however, as he reached the door. “Aggie’s only trying to find out--!” “Yes--what?” he asked, waiting. “Why what sort of a person she is. How can she ever have known? It was carefully, elaborately hidden from her--kept so obscure that she could make out nothing. She isn’t now like ME.” He wonderingly attended. “Like you?” “Why I get the benefit of the fact that there was never a time when I didn’t know SOMETHING or other, and that I became more and more aware, as I grew older, of a hundred little chinks of daylight.” Mitchy stared. “You’re stupendous, my dear!” he murmured. Ah but she kept it up. “_I_ had my idea about Aggie.” “Oh don’t I know you had? And how you were positive about the sort of person--!” “That she didn’t even suspect herself,” Nanda broke in, “to be? I’m equally positive now. It’s quite what I believed, only there’s ever so much more of it. More HAS come--and more will yet. You see, when there has been nothing before, it all has to come with a rush. So that if even I’m surprised of course she is.” “And of course _I_ am!” Mitchy’s interest, though even now not wholly unqualified with amusement, had visibly deepened. “You admit then,” he continued, “that you’re surprised?” Nanda just hesitated. “At the mere scale of it. I think it’s splendid. The only person whose astonishment I don’t quite understand,” she added, “is Cousin Jane.” “Oh Cousin Jane’s astonishment serves her right!” “If she held so,” Nanda pursued, “that marriage should do everything--!” “She shouldn’t be in such a funk at finding what it IS doing? Oh no, she’s the last one!” Mitchy declared. “I vow I enjoy her scare.” “But it’s very bad, you know,” said Nanda. “Oh too awful!”