s the nicest thing you ever said
to me. But ever, EVER, you know."

"Is it?" She had her hand on his sleeve, and he looked almost awkward.

"Quite the very nicest. Consider that fact well and even if you only
said it by accident don't be funny--as you know you sometimes CAN
be--and take it back. It's all right. It's charming, isn't it? when our
troubles bring us more together. Now go up to her."

Edward kept a queer face, into which this succession of remarks
introduced no light, but he finally moved, and it was only when he had
almost reached the door that he stopped again. "Of course you know he
has sent her no end of books."

"Mr. Longdon--of late? Oh yes, a deluge, so that her room looks like
a bookseller's back shop; and all, in the loveliest bindings, the most
standard English works. I not only know it, naturally, but I know--what
you don't--why."

"'Why'?" Edward echoed. "Why but that--unless he should send her
money--it's about the only kindness he can show her at a distance?"

Mrs. Brook hesitated; then with a little suppressed sigh: "That's it!"

But it still held him. "And perhaps he does send her money."

"No. Not now."

Edward lingered. "Then is he taking it out--?"

"In books only?" It was wonderful--with its effect on him now
visible--how she possessed her subject. "Yes, that's his delicacy--for
the present."

"And you're not afraid for the future--?"

"Of his considering that the books will have worked it off? No. They're
thrown in."

Just perceptibly cheered he reached the door, where, however, he had
another pause. "You don't think I had better see Van?"

She stared. "What for?"

"Why, to ask what the devil he means."

"If you should do anything so hideously vulgar," she instantly replied,
"I'd leave your house the next hour. Do you expect," she asked, "to be
able to force your child down his throat?"

He was clearly not prepared with an account of his expectations, but he
had a general memory that imposed itself. "Then why in the world did he
make up to us?"

"He didn't. We made up to HIM."

"But why in the world--?"

"Well," said Mrs. Brook, really to finish, "we were in love with him."

"Oh!" Edward jerked. He had by this time opened the door, and the
sound was partly the effect of the disclosure of a servant preceding a
visitor. His greeting of the visitor before edging past and away was,
however, of the briefest; it might have implied that they had met but
yesterday. "H