"I don't understand you." Mrs.Brook, seeing it all from dim depths, tracked it further and further.

"We've talked her over so!" Mr.Cashmore groaned as if too conscious of it.

"Indeed we have!" "I mean WE"-- and it was wonderful how her accent discriminated.

"We've talked you too--but of course we talk to every one." She had a pause through which there glimmered a ray from luminous hours, the inner intimacy which, privileged as he was, he couldn't pretend to share; then she broke out almost impatiently: "We're looking after her--leave her to US!" His envy of this nearer approach to what so touched him than he could himself achieve was in his face, but he tried to throw it off.

"I doubt if after all you're good for her." But Mrs.Brookenham knew.