ning over the book. "No."

"Then how are you just now so struck with it?"

"I'm not struck only with what I'm talked to about. I don't know," she
went on, "only what people tell me."

"Ah no--you're too much your mother's daughter for that!" Vanderbank
leaned back and smoked, and though all his air seemed to say that when
one was so at ease for gossip almost any subject would do, he kept
jogging his foot with the same small nervous motion as during the
half-hour at Mertle that this record has commemorated. "You're too
much one of us all," he continued. "We've tremendous perceptions,"
he laughed. "Of course I SHOULD have come for him. But after all," he
added, as if all sorts of nonsense would equally serve, "he mightn't,
except for you, you know, have asked me."

Nanda so far accepted this view as to reply: "That's awfully weak. He's
so modest that he might have been afraid of your boring yourself."

"That's just what I mean."

"Well, if you do," Nanda returned, "the explanation's a little
conceited."

"Oh I only made it," Vanderbank said, "in reference to his modesty."
Beyond the lawn the house was before him, old, square, red-roofed, well
assured of its right to the place it took up in the world. This was a
considerable space--in the little world at least of Suffolk--and the
look of possession had everywhere mixed with it, in the form of old
windows and doors, the tone of old red surfaces, the style of old white
facings, the age of old high creepers, the long confirmation of time.
Suggestive of panelled rooms, of precious mahogany, of portraits
of women dead, of coloured china glimmering through glass doors and
delicate silver reflected on bared tables, the thing was one of those
impressions of a particular period that it takes two centuries to
produce. "Fancy," the young man incoherently exclaimed, "his caring to
leave anything so loveable as all this to come up and live with US!"

The girl also for a little lost herself. "Oh you don't know what it
is--the charm comes out so as one stays. Little by little it grows and
grows. There are old things everywhere that are too delightful. He
lets me explore so--he lets me rummage and rifle. Every day I make
discoveries."

Vanderbank wondered as he smoked. "You mean he lets you take things--?"

"Oh yes--up to my room, to study or to copy. There are old patterns that
are too dear for anything. It's when you live with them, you see, that
you know. Everything in the