" said he, rather drily. "Or rather, of course, you
shouldn't. It's more or less disturbing to one's peace of mind at
times...."

She was looking at him with an interested intentness of which she was
quite unconscious. Never before had she seen this man free of the
knowledge of menacing discussion ever pressing in the foreground; so now
it was a little as if she met for the first time some one whom she had
heard a great deal about from others. Her eye for externals had observed
his new suit at once; in this deceptive light she considered that it
looked quite nice, not suspecting that it was only the Prince, reduced;
and she was thinking, with a sense of discovery, that Mr. V.V. was
undoubtedly a good-looking man. A certain change in his manner she had
also noted; a new touch of force, it seemed, a somewhat stiffened
masculinity. What had become of that rather engaging hopeful look of
his, which was the second thing she had ever noticed about him?...

"Perhaps I shall see it some day," she answered. "If I ever become one
of your Mr. Pond's district visitors and investigators."

"Are you thinking of doing that?"

"Oh, I offered to try to do something, but Mr. Pond declined me, without
thanks. He said I was perfectly useless to him--in his big and serious
work. The worst of it was," she said, smiling rather ruefully, "he
proved it."

She was glancing toward the door, with the moving and humming groups
beyond, and so missed the sudden eagerness that briefly lit his face.

"What part of the work--if I might ask--were you--specially interested
in?"

"I suppose I'm not really interested in any part. That must be the
trouble. Probably it's just the usual dissatisfied feeling--when one is
a little tired of parties...."

Was that not yet another confidence, clearly calling for an
understanding listener, for sympathetic reassurance? Nothing of the sort
came to Cally; nothing of any sort. The brief pause, sharpened as it was
by Mr. V.V.'s oddly formal bearing, was rather like a cold douche. And
now it seemed that she must have been counting on this man somehow all
along, though it was not clear as to what....

"So you see my peace of mind is quite safe. Mr. Pond is right, of
course...." And then, thinking that this cool distance was rather absurd
under the circumstances, she added in a friendlier way: "But why aren't
you the Director here, instead of Mr. Pond? I should think you would be,
since it's your Settlement."