s the smoke--or call it the soot!--of the fire. You know,
yourself," she roundly pursued, "that Nanda's situation appals you."

"Oh 'appals'!" he restrictively murmured.

It even tried a little his companion's patience. "There you are, you
English--you'll never face your own music. It's amazing what you'd
rather do with a thing--anything not to shoot at or to make money
with--than look at its meaning. If I wished to save the girl as YOU wish
it I should know exactly from what. But why differ about reasons," she
asked, "when we're at one about the fact? I don't mention the greatest
of Vanderbank's merits," she added--"his having so delicious a friend.
By whom, let me hasten to assure you," she laughed, "I don't in the
least mean Mrs. Brook! She IS delicious if you like, but believe me when
I tell you, caro mio--if you need to be told--that for effective action
on him you're worth twenty of her."

What was most visible in Mr. Longdon was that, however it came to him,
he had rarely before, all at once, had so much given him to think
about. Again the only way to manage was to take what came uppermost.
"By effective action you mean action on the matter of his proposing for
Nanda?"

The Duchess's assent was noble. "You can make him propose--you can make,
I mean, a sure thing of it. You can doter the bride." Then as with
the impulse to meet benevolently and more than halfway her companion's
imperfect apprehension: "You can settle on her something that will make
her a parti." His apprehension was perhaps imperfect, but it could
still lead somehow to his flushing all over, and this demonstration the
Duchess as quickly took into account. "Poor Edward, you know, won't give
her a penny."

Decidedly she went fast, but Mr. Longdon in a moment had caught up.
"Mr. Vanderbank--your idea is--would require on the part of his wife
something of that sort?"

"Pray who wouldn't--in the world we all move in--require it quite as
much? Mr. Vanderbank, I'm assured, has no means of his own at all, and
if he doesn't believe in impecunious marriages it's not I who shall be
shocked at him. For myself I simply despise them. He has nothing but a
poor official salary. If it's enough for one it would be little for two,
and would be still less for half a dozen. They're just the people to
have, that blessed pair, a fine old English family."

Mr. Longdon was now fairly abreast of it. "What it comes to then, the
idea you're so good as to put before m