"I want to come to a clearness about the position of this blessed window," he says. "Which direction is the bed in now? Well--describe it this way, suppose! Say I'm looking north now, with my shoulder against the window. Where's the bed? South-west--south-east--due south?" "South-west by south. Perhaps that's not nautical, but you know what I mean." "All right! Now, look here! As I stand here--looking out slantwise--where's the sunset? I mean, where would it be?--where does it mean to be?" "You would be looking straight at it. Of course, you are not really looking north.... There--now you are!" She had taken her hands from the shoulder they were folded on and turned his head to the right. "But, I say, Adrian dear!..." She hesitates. "What, for instance?" "Don't try to humbug too much. Don't try to do it, darling boy. You'll only make a hash of it." "All right, goosey-woosey! I'll fry my own fish. Don't you be uneasy!" And then they talk of other things: the journey home to-morrow, and how it shall be as good as lying in bed to Adrian, in the big carriage with an infinity of cushions; the new friends they have made here at the Towers, with something of wonderment that this chance has been so long postponed; the kindness they have had from them, and the ill-requital Adrian made for it yesterday by breaking that beautiful blue china tea-cup--any trifle that comes foremost--anything but the great grief that underlies the whole. For Irene would have her brother at his best, that the visit to him of her new-made friend Gwen may go off well, and steer clear of the ambushes that beset it. Better that that visit should never come off, than that her friend should be left to share their fears for the future. Each is hiding from the other a weakening confidence in the renewal of suspended eyesight, weaker at the outset than either had been prepared to admit to the other. "Look here, 'Rene," says Adrian, an hour later, during which his sister has read aloud to him, lying by the open window. "Never mind Becky Sharp; she'll keep till the evening. Can we see Arthur's Bridge from this window, where I saw your friend Lady Gwen? It was Arthur's, wasn't it? What Arthur? King Arthur?" "Yes, if you like. Only don't go and call it Asses' Bridge, as you did the other day--not when the family's here. It sounds disrespectful." "Not a bit. It only looks as if Euclid had been round. But answer my question.... Oh, we _can_ see it! Very well, then; show me which way it lies. Is it visible--the actual bridge itself, I mean--not the place it's in?" Irene got up and looked out of the window from behind her brother's chair. "Yes," she said. "One sees the stone arch plain. How can I show you?" She took his head in her hands again to guide it to a true line of sight. "Between us and the sunset?" "Thereabouts. Rather on the left." "Very good. Now we can go on with Becky Sharp."