"Because my Mercury cap is your responsibility."
"My—"
"You've forgotten already!" As they went down, she reminded him of that time she appeared in the blue hat with Michaelmas daisies. "You perfectly hated it." Yes, he remembered he hadn't liked it. And Julian had quoted Herbert Spencer. Nobody was ever satisfied with hitting on the right thing. If a person found a special kind of ink-pot that suited him, or a milk-jug that would pour without spilling, or clothes that were just right, "we were so certain to want a change that the same thing wasn't made again," Miss Nan supplemented. "But my same-shaped hat has been made again and again, and you never noticed! That's all I get."
It was only to himself that Napier said: "No! no! She got more—more than was wise or well."
"Did you find the green suit-case?" he asked, "and my letter?"
"Oh, yes. But the letter was hardly worth showing."
He claimed the sealed envelope and opened it on the spot. He read:
Dear Gavan:
This is to say good-by. Since my talk with you I haven't felt I could go on staying here in England. So, as I have no news from Germany and hear that my mother is in New York, I'm moving heaven and earth to get off to-morrow in the only really good sailing this month. I wish I need not think of you over there in France, but I don't know how I can help that.
Yours,
Nan Ellis.
P.S.—Perhaps you wouldn't mind writing me. N. E.
She gave a New York address.
Only to himself he put the question, On what terms had she left Julian? What lay behind the delight in the eyes that welcomed Napier? Ask? Not he. He would try not so much as to wonder. Even if the shining of the hours in front of them was no more than the fragile iridescence of a bubble floating in the sun, the greater was the need not to touch such beauty with too inquiring finger.