He says we've all come to a pass that's the end of everything." Mr.Longdon remained mute a while, and when he at last, raised his eyes it was without meeting Nanda's and with some dryness of manner.

"The end of everything?
One might easily receive that impression." He again became mute, and there was a pause between them of some length, accepted by Nanda with an anxious stillness that it might have touched a spectator to observe.

She sat there as if waiting for some further sign, only wanting not to displease her friend, yet unable to pretend to play any part and with something in her really that she couldn't take back now, something involved in her original assumption that there was to be a kind of intelligence in their relation.

"I dare say," she said at last, "that I make allusions you don't like.

But I keep forgetting." He waited a moment longer, then turned to her with a look rendered a trifle strange by the way it happened to reach over his glasses.