Her light, indeed, for her friend, was at first almost blinding; it took Mrs. Gracedew a moment to distinguish--which she then did, however, with immense eagerness. “You prefer someone else?” Cora’s promptitude dropped at this, and, starting to hear it, as you might well have seen, for the first time publicly phrased, she abruptly moved away. A minute’s sense of her scruple was enough for Mrs. Gracedew: this was proved by the tone of soft remonstrance and high benevolence with which that lady went on. She had looked very hard, first, at one of the old warriors hung on the old wall, and almost spoke as if he represented their host. “He seems remarkably clever.” Cora, at something in the sound, quite jumped about. “Then why don’t you marry him yourself?” Mrs. Gracedew gave a sort of happy sigh. “Well, I’ve got fifty reasons! I rather think one of them must be that he hasn’t happened to ask me.” It was a speech, however, that her visitor could easily better. “I haven’t got fifty reasons, but I _have_ got one.” Mrs. Gracedew smiled as if it were indeed a stroke of wit. “You mean your case is one of those in which safety is _not_ in numbers?” And then on Cora’s visibly not understanding: “It _is_ when reasons are bad that one needs so many!” The proposition was too general for the girl to embrace, but the simplicity of her answer was far from spoiling it. “My reason is awfully good.” Mrs. Gracedew did it complete justice. “I see. An older friend.” Cora listened as at a warning sound; yet she had by this time practically let herself go, and it took but Mrs. Gracedew’s extended encouraging hand, which she quickly seized, to bring the whole thing out. “I’ve been trying this hour, in my terrible need of advice, to tell you about him!” It came in a small clear torrent, a soft tumble-out of sincerity. “After we parted--you and I--at the station, he suddenly turned up there, and I took a little quiet walk with him which gave you time to get here before me and of which my father is in a state of ignorance that I don’t know whether to regard as desirable or dreadful.” Mrs. Gracedew, attentive and wise, might have been, for her face, the old family solicitor. “You want me then to _inform_ your father?” It was a wonderful intonation. Poor Cora, for that matter too, might suddenly have become under this touch the prodigal with a list of debts. She seemed an instant to look out of a blurred office window-pane at a grey London sky; then she broke away. “I really don’t know _what_ I want. I think,” she honestly admitted, “I just want kindness.” Mrs. Gracedew’s expression might have hinted--but not for too long--that Bedford Row was an odd place to apply for it; she appeared for an instant to make the revolving office-chair creak. “What do you mean by kindness?” Cora was a model client--she perfectly knew. “I mean help.” Mrs. Gracedew closed an inkstand with a clap and locked a couple of drawers. “What do you mean by help?”