"I like your daughter better than I like you." But it only amused her more.

"Is that perhaps because _I_ don't prove your purity ?" What he might have replied remained in the air, for the door opened so exactly at the moment she spoke that he rose again with a start and the butler, coming in, received her enquiry full in the face.

This functionary's answer to it, however, had no more than the usual austerity.

"Mr.Vanderbank and Mr.Longdon." These visitors took a minute to appear, and Mrs.Brook, not stirring--still only looking from the sofa calmly up at Mr.
Cashmore--used the time, it might have seemed, for correcting any impression of undue levity made by her recent question.

"Where did you last meet Nanda ?" He glanced at the door to see if he were heard.