“To stay with a person”—Nanda took it up as, apparently out of delicacy, he fairly failed—“whose father used to take the measure, down on his knees on a little mat, as mamma says, of my grandfather’s remarkably large foot? Yes, we none of us mind. Do you think we should?” Nanda asked.
Mr. Longdon turned it over. “I’ll answer you by a question. Would you marry him?”
“Never.” Then as if to show there was no weakness in her mildness, “Never, never, never,” she repeated.
“And yet I dare say you know—?” But Mr. Longdon once more faltered; his scruple came uppermost. “You don’t mind my speaking of it?”
“Of his thinking he wants to marry me? Not a bit. I positively enjoy telling you there’s nothing in it.”
“Not even for HIM?”
Nanda considered. “Not more than is made up to him by his having found out through talks and things—which mightn’t otherwise have occurred—that I do like him. I wouldn’t have come down here if I hadn’t liked him.”
“Not for any other reason?”—Mr. Longdon put it gravely.
“Not for YOUR being here, do you mean?”
He delayed. “Me and other persons.”