. "But I hope," she added, "he didn't like me
too much." Then as if to escape a little from her friend's deeper
sounding, or as impatient for the carriage, not yet in sight, her eyes,
turning away, took in the great stale square. As its staleness,
however, was but that of London fairly fatigued, the late hot London
with its dance all danced and its story all told, the air seemed a
thing of blurred pictures and mixed echoes, and an impression met the
sense--an impression that broke, the next moment, through the girl's
tightened lips. "Oh, it's a beautiful big world, and everyone, yes,
everyone----!" It presently brought her back to Kate, and she hoped she
didn't actually look as much as if she were crying as she must have
looked to Lord Mark among the portraits at Matcham.

Kate at all events understood. "Everyone wants to be so nice?"

"So nice," said the grateful Milly.

"Oh," Kate laughed, "we'll pull you through! And won't you now bring
Mrs. Stringham?"

But Milly after an instant was again clear about that. "Not till I've
seen him once more."

She was to have found this preference, two days later, abundantly
justified; and yet when, in prompt accordance with what had passed
between them, she reappeared before her distinguished friend--that
character having, for him, in the interval, built itself up still
higher--the first thing he asked her was whether she had been
accompanied. She told him, on this, straightway, everything; completely
free at present from her first embarrassment, disposed even--as she
felt she might become--to undue volubility, and conscious moreover of
no alarm from his thus perhaps wishing that she had not come alone. It
was exactly as if, in the forty-eight hours that had passed, her
acquaintance with him had somehow increased, and his own knowledge in
particular received mysterious additions. They had been together,
before, scarce ten minutes; but the relation, the one the ten minutes
had so beautifully created, was there to take straight up: and this
not, on his own part, from mere professional heartiness, mere bedside
manner, which she would have disliked--much rather from a quiet,
pleasant air in him of having positively asked about her, asked here
and there and found out. Of course he couldn't in the least have asked,
or have wanted to; there was no source of information to his hand, and
he had really needed none: he had found out simply by his genius--and
found out, she meant, litera