5

She pleased him more and more “There is something singularly ap-pealing about her,” he said to Murasaki. “Her mother was a little too solemn and humorless. She is very quick and bright, and somehow a Person immediately wants to be friends with her. I am very sure now that she will not be an embarrassment.”

Familiar with his inability to let well enough alone, she had guessed what was happening. “It must be rather difficult for her not to have any secrets and to be so completely dependent on you.”

“And why should she not be dependent on me?”

She smiled. “Can you think that I have forgotten all the sighs and pains your way of doing things produced in my own younger years?”

How quick she was! “You find very odd and foolish things to worry about. Do you think she would permit anything of the sort?” He changed the subject; but she had surveyed the scene and come to her conclusions, and he had to admit that there were matters on his conscience.