reover, the merit of being
easily interpreted; it said very plainly, "Please don't insist, but
leave me alone." And it said it not at all sharply--very gently and
pleadingly. Bernard found himself understanding it so well that he
literally blushed with intelligence.

"Don't you come to the Casino in the evening, as you used to come to the
Kursaal?" he asked.

Mrs. Vivian looked again at her daughter, who had passed into the
door-way of the cottage; then she said--

"We will go this evening."

"I shall look for you eagerly," Bernard rejoined. "Auf wiedersehen, as
we used to say at Baden!"

Mrs. Vivian waved him a response over the gate, her daughter gave him a
glance from the threshold, and he took his way back to his inn.

He awaited the evening with great impatience; he fancied he had made a
discovery, and he wished to confirm it. The discovery was that his idea
that she bore him a grudge, that she was conscious of an injury, that he
was associated in her mind with a wrong, had all been a morbid illusion.
She had forgiven, she had forgotten, she did n't care, she had possibly
never cared! This, at least, was his theory now, and he longed for a
little more light upon it. His old sense of her being a complex and
intricate girl had, in that quarter of an hour of talk with her, again
become lively, so that he was not absolutely sure his apprehensions
had been vain. But, with his quick vision of things, he had got the
impression, at any rate, that she had no vulgar resentment of any slight
he might have put upon her, or any disadvantage he might have caused
her. Her feeling about such a matter would be large and original.
Bernard desired to see more of that, and in the evening, in fact, it
seemed to him that he did so.

The terrace of the Casino was far from offering the brilliant spectacle
of the promenade in front of the gaming-rooms at Baden. It had neither
the liberal illumination, the distinguished frequenters, nor the
superior music which formed the attraction of that celebrated spot; but
it had a modest animation of its own, in which the starlight on the open
sea took the place of clustered lamps, and the mighty resonance of
the waves performed the function of an orchestra. Mrs. Vivian made her
appearance with her daughter, and Bernard, as he used to do at Baden,
chose a corner to place some chairs for them. The crowd was small, for
most of the visitors had compressed themselves into one of the rooms,
where