The possibility he hinted, however remote, was enough to stop her short, actually and mentally. Considering, she stood still, with a face of distaste. The hush before sunset flooded the quiet road. A bird called plaintively from some low bush, was still, and called again. From the river came the muffled, mellow note of a boat horn. Two ponies looked over the brick wall, shook their tawny heads, and galloped to the field with a joyous affectation of terror. Nina! By what fantastic turn of the cards was Royal Blondin to be connected in her thoughts, after all these years, with Nina?
She looked at Blondin, who was watching her with a half-sulky, half-ingratiating air.
"My dear girl, that was merely an idle remark!" he said.
"Well, I hope so," Harriet said, going on, "anyway, she's a child!"
"You weren't--quite--a child, at eighteen," he reminded her.
The colour flooded her transparent dusky skin.
"That's--exactly--what I was!" she said, drily. "But talk to Nina, if you don't believe me! Everything that is school-girly and romantic and undeveloped, is Nina. If you held her coat for her, she would embroider the circumstance into something significant and flattering! She is absolutely inexperienced; she's what I called her, a child!"
"I've been talking to her," Blondin said. His companion looked at him sharply, and after a second he laughed. "There is just one chance in the world that I might make that little girl extremely happy!" he said.
"Don't talk nonsense!" Harriet said again, impatiently.
"Is it nonsense?" he asked, smiling.