“Dear no--he and Mr. Van.” “Was Mr. Van with him?” “Oh no--before, alone. All over the place.” Mr. Longdon had a pause so rich in appeal that when he at last spoke his question was itself like an answer. “Mr. Van has been to see you?” “Yes. I wrote and asked him.” “Oh!” said Mr. Longdon. “But don’t get up.” She raised her hand. “Don’t.” “Why should I?” He had never budged. “He was most kind; stayed half an hour and, when I told him you were coming, left a good message for you.” Mr. Longdon appeared to wait for this tribute, which was not immediately produced. “What do you call a ‘good’ message?” “I’m to make it all right with you.” “To make what?” “Why, that he has not, for so long, been to see you or written to you. That he has seemed to neglect you.” Nanda’s visitor looked so far about as to take the neighbourhood in general into the confidence of his surprise. “To neglect ME?” “Well, others too, I believe--with whom we’re not concerned. He has been so taken up. But you above all.” Mr. Longdon showed on this a coldness that somehow spoke for itself as the greatest with which he had ever in his life met an act of reparation and that was infinitely confirmed by his sustained immobility. “But of what have I complained?” “Oh I don’t think he fancies you’ve complained.” “And how could he have come to see me,” he continued, “when for so many months past I’ve been so little in town?” He was not more ready with objections, however, than his companion had by this time become with answers. “He must have been thinking of the time of your present stay. He evidently has you much on his mind--he spoke of not having seen you.” “He has quite sufficiently tried--he has left cards,” Mr. Longdon returned. “What more does he want?” Nanda looked at him with her long grave straight-ness, which had often a play of light beyond any smile. “Oh, you know, he does want more.” “Then it was open to him--” “So he so strongly feels”--she quickly took him up--“that you must have felt. And therefore it is I speak for him.” “Don’t!” said Mr. Longdon. “But I promised him I would.” “Don’t!” her friend repeated as in stifled pain. She had kept for the time all her fine clearness turned to him; but she might on this have been taken as giving him up with a movement of obedience and a strange soft sigh. The smothered sound might even have represented to a listener at all initiated a consenting retreat before an effort greater than her reckoning--a retreat that was in so far the snap of a sharp tension. The next minute, none the less, she evidently found a fresh provocation in the sight of the pale and positively excessive rigour she had imposed, so that, though her friend was only accommodating himself to her wish she had a sudden impulse of criticism. “You’re proud about it--too proud!” “Well, what if I am?” He looked at her with a complexity of communication that no words could have meddled with. “Pride’s all right when it helps one to bear things.”