Then she opened an inch or two, for Vanderbank, the door of her dim radiance.

"Only I should have thought it a difference for the better.

Of course," she added, "it remains absolutely with us three alone, and don't you already feel from it the fresh charm--with it here between us--of our being together ?" It was as if each of the men had waited for the other to assent better than he himself could and Mitchy then, as Vanderbank failed, had gracefully, to cover him, changed the subject.

"But isn't Nanda, the person most interested, to know ?" Vanderbank gave on this a strange sound of hilarity.

"Ah that would finish it off!" It produced for a few seconds something like a chill, a chill that had for consequence a momentary pause which in its turn added weight to the words next uttered.