lled her second wind. "Oh I know
you think she always HAS been! But you've exaggerated--as to that; and
I don't say that even at present it's anything we shan't get the better
of. Only we must keep our heads. We must remember that from her own
point of view she has her grievance, and we must at least look as if we
trusted her. That, you know, is what you've never quite done."

He gave out a murmur of discomfort which produced in him a change of
position, and the sequel to the change was that he presently accepted
from his cushioned angle of the sofa the definite support it could
offer. If his eyes moreover had not met his companion's they had been
brought by the hand he repeatedly and somewhat distressfully passed over
them closer to the question of which of the alien objects presented to
his choice it would cost him least to profess to handle. What he had
already paid, a spectator would easily have gathered from the long,
the suppressed wriggle that had ended in his falling back, was some
sacrifice of his habit of not privately depreciating those to whom he
was publicly civil. It was plain, however, that when he presently spoke
his thought had taken a stretch. "I'm sure I've fully intended to be
everything that's proper. But I don't think Mr. Vanderbank cares for
her."

It kindled in the Duchess an immediate light. "Vous avez bien de
l'esprit. You put one at one's ease. I've been vaguely groping while
you're already there. It's really only for Nanda he cares?"

"Yes--really."

The Duchess debated. "And yet exactly how much?"

"I haven't asked him."

She had another, a briefer pause. "Don't you think it about time you
SHOULD?" Once more she waited, then seemed to feel her opportunity
wouldn't. "We've worked a bit together, but you don't take me into your
confidence. I dare say you don't believe I'm quite straight. Don't you
really see how I MUST be?" She had a pleading note which made him at
last more consentingly face her. "Don't you see," she went on with the
advantage of it, "that, having got all I want for myself, I haven't a
motive in the world for spoiling the fun of another? I don't want in the
least, I assure you, to spoil even Mrs. Brook's; for how will she get a
bit less out of him--I mean than she does now--if what you desire SHOULD
take place? Honestly, my dear man, that's quite what _I_ desire, and I
only want, over and above, to help you. What I feel for Nanda, believe
me, is pure pity. I won't say