Mr. Langbourne!" She pushed towards him the arm-chair before her, and he
dropped into it. She took her place on the hair-cloth sofa, and Miss
Simpson sank back upon the piano-stool with a painful provisionality,
while her eyes sought Miss Bingham's in a sort of admiring terror.

Miss Bingham was easily mistress of the situation; she did not try to
bring Miss Simpson into the conversation, but she contrived to make Mrs.
Simpson ask Langbourne when he arrived at Upper Ashton Falls; and she
herself asked him when he had left New York, with many apposite
suppositions concerning the difference in the season in the two
latitudes. She presumed he was staying at the Falls House, and she said,
always in her high, gay tinkle, that it was very pleasant there in the
summer time. He did not know what he answered. He was aware that from
time to time Miss Simpson said something in a frightened undertone. He
did not know how long it was before Mrs. Simpson made an errand out of
the room, in the abeyance which age practises before youthful society in
the country; he did not know how much longer it was before Miss Bingham
herself jumped actively up, and said, Now she would run over to Jenny's,
if Mr. Langbourne would excuse her, and tell her that they could not go
the next day.

"It will do just as well in the morning," Miss Simpson pitifully
entreated.

"No, she's got to know to-night," said Miss Bingham, and she said she
should find Mr. Langbourne there when she got back. He knew that in
compliance with the simple village tradition he was being purposely left
alone with Miss Simpson, as rightfully belonging to her. Miss Bingham
betrayed no intentionality to him, but he caught a glimpse of mocking
consciousness in the sidelong look she gave Miss Simpson as she went
out; and if he had not known before he perceived then, in the vanishing
oval of her cheek, the corner of her arched eyebrow, the point of her
classic nose, the original of the photograph he had been treasuring as
Miss Simpson's.

VII.

"It was _her_ picture I sent you," said Miss Simpson. She was the first
to break the silence to which Miss Bingham abandoned them, but she did
not speak till her friend had closed the outer door behind her and was
tripping down the brick walk to the gate.

"Yes," said Langbourne, in a dryness which he could not keep himself
from using.

The girl must have felt it, and her voice faltered a very little as she
continued. "We--I--did i