He's dead, at any rate, poor man, and she has come back here to live." "Gloomily, I should think--after Naples ?" Mr.Longdon threw out.
"Oh it would take more than even a Neapolitan past--! However"-- and the young man caught himself up--"she lives not in what's behind her, but in what's before--she lives in her precious little Aggie." "Little Aggie ?" Mr.Longdon risked a cautious interest.
"I don't take a liberty there," Vanderbank smiled: "I speak only of the young Agnesina, a little girl, the Duchess's niece, or rather I believe her husband's, whom she has adopted--in the place of a daughter early lost--and has brought to England to marry." "Ah to some great man of course!" Vanderbank thought.

"I don't know." He gave a vague but expressive sigh.
"She's rather lovely, little Aggie." Mr.Longdon looked conspicuously subtle.

"Then perhaps YOU'RE the man!" "Do I look like a 'great' one ?" Vanderbank broke in.
His visitor, turning away from him, again embraced the room.

"Oh dear, yes!" "Well then, to show how right you are, there's the young lady." He pointed to an object on one of the tables, a small photograph with a very wide border of something that looked like crimson fur.
Mr.Longdon took up the picture; he was serious now.

"She's very beautiful--but she's not a little girl." "At Naples they develop early.