Charlotte herself spoke again at last--"You may want to know what I get by it.

But that's my own affair." He really didn't want to know even this--or continued, for the safest plan, quite to behave as if he didn't; which prolonged the mere dumbness of diversion in which he had taken refuge.

He was glad when, finally--the point she had wished to make seeming established to her satisfaction--they brought to what might pass for a close the moment of his life at which he had had least to say.

Movement and progress, after this, with more impersonal talk, were naturally a relief; so that he was not again, during their excursion, at a loss for the right word.

The air had been, as it were, cleared; they had their errand itself to discuss, and the opportunities of London, the sense of the wonderful place, the pleasures of prowling there, the question of shops, of possibilities, of particular objects, noticed by each in previous prowls.