He just hesitated. “If it were here you’d see if it’s my hand.”
Nanda faltered, and for somewhat longer. “How should I see? What do I know of your hand?”
He looked at her hard. “You HAVE seen it.”
“Oh--so little!” she replied with a faint smile.
“Do you mean I’ve not written to you for so long? Surely I did in--when was it?”
“Yes, when? But why SHOULD you?” she asked in quite a different tone.
He was not prepared on this with the right statement, and what he did after a moment bring out had for the occasion a little the sound of the wrong. “The beauty of YOU is that you’re too good; which for me is but another way of saying you’re too clever. You make no demands. You let things go. You don’t allow in particular for the human weakness that enjoys an occasional glimpse of the weakness of others.”
She had deeply attended to him. “You mean perhaps one doesn’t show enough what one wants?”
“I think that must be it. You’re so fiendishly proud.”
She appeared again to wonder. “Not too much so, at any rate, only to want from YOU--”
“Why, what’s pleasant for yourself,” she simply said.
“Oh dear, that’s poor bliss!” he returned. “How does it come then,” he next said, “that with this barrenness of our intercourse I know so well YOUR hand?”
A series of announcements had meanwhile been made, with guests arriving to match them, and Nanda’s eyes at this moment engaged themselves with Mr. Longdon and her mother, who entered the room together. When she looked back to her companion she had had time to drop a consciousness of his question. “If I’m proud, to you, I’m not good,” she said, “and if I’m good--always to you--I’m not proud. I know at all events perfectly how immensely you’re occupied, what a quantity of work you get through and how every minute counts for you. Don’t make it a crime to me that I’m reasonable.”
“No, that would show, wouldn’t it? that there isn’t much else. But how it all comes back--!”
“To the old story. You know how I’m occupied. You know how I work. You know how I manage my time.”
“Oh I see,” said Nanda. “It IS my knowing, after all, everything.”
“Everything. The book I just mentioned is one that, months ago---I remember now--I lent your mother.”
“Oh a thing in a blue cover? I remember then too.” Nanda’s face cleared up. “I had forgotten it was lying about here, but I must have brought it--in fact I remember I did--for Tishy. And I wrote your name on it so that we might know--”