Vanderbank only smiled at her in silence, but Mitchy took it up. “There’s nobody too good for you, of course; only you’re not quite, don’t you know? IN our set. You’re in Mrs. Grendon’s. I know what you’re going to say--that she hasn’t got any set, that she’s just a loose little white flower dropped on the indifferent bosom of the world. But you’re the small sprig of tender green that, added to her, makes her immediately ‘compose.’” Nanda looked at him with her cold kindness. “What nonsense you do talk!” “Your tone’s sweet to me,” he returned, “as showing that you don’t think ME, either, too good for you. No one, remember, will take that for your excuse when the world some day sees me annihilated by your having put an end to our so harmless relations.” The girl appeared to lose herself a moment in the--abysmal humanity over which his fairly fascinating ugliness played like the whirl of an eddy. “Martyr!” she gently exclaimed. But there was no smile with it. She turned to Vanderbank, who, during the previous minute, had moved toward the neighbouring room, then faltering, taking counsel of discretion, had come back on a scruple. “What IS the matter?” “What do you want to get out of him, you wretch?” Mitchy went on as their host for an instant said nothing. Vanderbank, whose handsome face had a fine thought in it, looked a trifle absently from one of them to the other; but it was to Nanda he spoke. “Do you like him, Nanda?” She showed surprise at the question. “How can I know so soon?” “HE knows already.” Mitchy, with his eyes on her, became radiant to interpret. “He knows that he’s pierced to the heart!” “The matter with him, as you call it,” Vanderbank brought out, “is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen.” He looked at her as with a hope she’d understand. “Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful!” “Precisely,” Mitchy continued; “the victim done for by one glance of the goddess!” Nanda, motionless in her chair, fixed her other friend with clear curiosity. “‘Beautiful’? Why beautiful?” Vanderbank, about to speak, checked himself. “I won’t spoil it. Have it from HIM!”--and, returning to their friend, he this time went out. Mitchy and Nanda looked at each other. “But isn’t it rather awful?” Mitchy demanded. She got up without answering; she slowly came away from the table. “I think I do know if I like him.” “Well you may,” Mitchy exclaimed, “after his putting before you probably, on the whole, the greatest of your triumphs.” “And I also know, I think, Mr. Mitchy, that I like YOU.” She spoke without attention to this hyperbole. “In spite of my ineffectual attempts to be brilliant? That’s a joy,” he went on, “if it’s not drawn out by the mere clumsiness of my flattery.” She had turned away from him, kindly enough, as if time for his talk in the air were always to be allowed him: she took in vaguely Vanderbank’s books and prints. “Why didn’t your mother come?” Mitchy then enquired.