“Yes, you see——” But of course he couldn’t explain why it was important. So he floundered helplessly a moment. “Yes—that is—well, they are very good friends of mine, Vin especially, and—”
“Oh, you feared perhaps I wasn’t a proper person for them to know?”
“Good heaven, no!”
“Then I don’t see——!”
“I don’t blame you,” he said discouragedly. “Really, I was only talking nonsense. I—I thought that if you knew them well, and I knew them well, then we—we might know each other well!”
She gazed at him sorrowfully a moment. Then she shook her head disappointedly.
“No,” she said, “no, that wasn’t at all what you meant. I suppose even studying for the law has its effect.”
He laughed embarrassedly.
“May I see what you are reading?” he asked.
She lifted the volume from her lap, gravely took a folded handkerchief from between the leaves where it had been doing duty as a mark, and handed him the book.