to ask a side question.

"Is mother willing to go to India?"

She was looking at the man as she spoke, and the change which passed
over his face, startled her by its intensity. His eyes shone, the
rugged features were transfigured by a very radiance of joy. He looked
young at that moment, young and handsome, and blissfully content.
Claire stared at him in amazement, not unmingled with irritation. Even
if mother _were_ willing, her own consent had still to be obtained. It
was tactless to make so sure!

Her own face looked decidedly sulky as she twitched round on her seat,
and resumed her stolid staring into space. Again there was silence,
till a hand stretched out to clasp her arm, and a voice spoke in deep
appealing accents--

"Claire, dear child, you are young; you have never known loneliness or
disappointment. We have! Happiness is fifty times more precious, when
it comes to those who have suffered. You would not be cruel enough to
damp our happiness! You _can_ do it, you know, if you persist in an
attitude of coldness and disapproval. I don't say you can destroy it.
Thank God! it goes too deep for anyone to be able to do that. But you
can rub off the bloom. Don't do it, Claire! Be generous. Be yourself.
Wish us good luck!"

"Wish _who_ good luck? What, oh, what are you talking about?" Claire
was gasping now, quivering with a frenzy of excitement. Robert Judge
stared in return, his face full of an honest bewilderment.

"Of our engagement, of course. Your mother's engagement to me. I have
been talking about it all the time!"

Then Claire threw up both her hands, and burst into a wild peal of
laughter. Peal after peal rang out into the air, she rocked to and fro
on her seat, her eyes disappeared from view, her teeth shone, her little
feet in their dainty French shoes danced upon the ground; she laughed
till the tears poured down her cheeks, and her gloved hands pressed
against her side where a "stitch" was uncomfortably making itself felt.
Stout Belgian couples passing past the end of the avenue, looked on with
indulgent smiles, a little shocked at so much demonstration in public,
but relieved to perceive that _une Anglaise_ could laugh with such
_abandon_. Monsieur they observed looked not sympathetic. Monsieur had
an air injured, annoyed, on his dignity. On his cheeks was a flush, as
of wounded pride. When at length the paroxysm showed signs of
lessening, he spoke in cold stilted tones