Clementina put her hand—the glove on it, so different from Etta’s, was thirty sizes too large; it was of white cotton, and new—she had sent the page-boy of the hotel that morning to buy her a pair—she put her gloved hand on his. At the touch he raised his eyes to hers. He saw in them something—he was too young and ingenuous to know what—but something he had not seen in Clementina’s eyes before. “You’re right, my dear boy,” she said. “God knows. That being so, it is up to Him, as the Americans say, to make good. And He’ll make good. That is, if you really love that little girl.” “Love her!” cried Tommy. “Why——” “Yes, yes,” Clementina interrupted hastily. “I’m convinced of it. You needn’t go into raptures.” She had endured much the last few weeks. She felt now that the penance of listening to amatory dithyrambics was supererogatory. “All I want to know is that you love her like a man.” “That I do,” said Tommy. “And she loves you?” Tommy nodded lugubriously. She loved him for nodding. “Then why the devil are you trying to make me miserable on this beautiful afternoon?” He twisted round on the bench and faced her. “Then you’re not angry with me—you don’t think I’ve been a blackguard?” “I think the two of you are innocent lambs,” said Clementina. Tommy grinned. He, the seasoned man of the world of twenty-three, to be called an innocent lamb! Much Clementina knew about it. “All the same,” said he, reverting to his gloom, “you’re different from other people; you have your own way of looking at things. Ordinary folk would say I had behaved abominably. Admiral Concannon would kick me out of the house if I went and asked him for his daughter. It’s Gilbertian! There’s a Bab Ballad almost on the same theme,” he laughed. “I guess I’d better not speak to the Admiral yet awhile.” “I guess not,” said Clementina. “Leave well alone for the present.”