“Ah but have YOU?” said Nanda. They were close to each other now, and with a tenderness of warning that was helped by their almost equal stature she laid her hand on his shoulder. “What I did more than anything else write to him for,” she had now regained her clearness enough to explain, “was that--with whatever idea you had--you should see for yourself how he could come and go.” “And what good was that to do me? HADN’T I seen for myself?” “Well--you’ve seen once more. Here he was. I didn’t care what he thought. Here I brought him. And his reasons remain.” She kept her eyes on her companion’s face, but his own now and afterwards seemed to wander far. “What do I care for his reasons so long as they’re not mine?” She thought an instant, still holding him gently and as if for successful argument. “But perhaps you don’t altogether understand them.” “And why the devil, altogether, SHOULD I?” “Ah because you distinctly want to,” said Nanda ever so kindly. “You’ve admitted as much when we’ve talked--” “Oh but when HAVE we talked?” he sharply interrupted. This time he had challenged her so straight that it was her own look that strayed. “When?” “When.” She hesitated. “When HAVEN’T we?” “Well, YOU may have: if that’s what you call talking--never saying a word. But I haven’t. I’ve only to do at any rate, in the way of reasons, with my own.” “And yours too then remain? Because, you know,” the girl pursued, “I AM like that.” “Like what?” “Like what he thinks.” Then so gravely that it was almost a supplication, “Don’t tell me,” she added, “that you don’t KNOW what he thinks. You do know.” Their eyes, on that strange ground, could meet at last, and the effect of it was presently for Mr. Longdon. “I do know.” “Well?” “Well!” He raised his hands and took her face, which he drew so close to his own that, as she gently let him, he could kiss her with solemnity on the forehead. “Come!” he then very firmly said--quite indeed as if it were a question of their moving on the spot. It literally made her smile, which, with a certain compunction, she immediately corrected by doing for him in the pressure of her lips to his cheek what he had just done for herself. “To-day?” she more seriously asked. He looked at his watch. “To-morrow.” She paused, but clearly for assent. “That’s what I mean by your taking me as I am. It IS, you know, for a girl--extraordinary.” “Oh I know what it is!” he exclaimed with an odd fatigue in his tenderness.