was on the point of offering them when, apparently having guessed my
intention, the elder lady silenced me with a look. Linda announced
without reserve that she hadn't money and Louisa then fumbled for a
franc. When she had found and bestowed it the girl kissed her before
going off with the letters.

"Darling mother, you haven't any too many of them, have you?" she
murmured; and she gave me, sidelong, as she left us, the prettiest half-
comical, half-pitiful smile.

"She's amazing--she's amazing," said Mrs. Pallant as we looked at each
other.

"Does she know what you've done?"

"She knows I've done something and she's making up her mind what it is.
She'll satisfy herself in the course of the next twenty-four hours--if
your nephew doesn't come back. I think I can promise you he won't."

"And won't she ask you?"

"Never!"

"Shan't you tell her? Can you sit down together in this summer-house,
this divine day, with such a dreadful thing as that between you?"

My question found my friend quite ready. "Don't you remember what I told
you about our relations--that everything was implied between us and
nothing expressed? The ideas we have had in common--our perpetual
worldliness, our always looking out for chances--are not the sort of