But they haven't--if that's what you want to know." "You've only believed me contented then because you've believed me stupid ?" Mrs.Assingham had a free smile, now, for the length of this stride, dissimulated though it might be in a graceful little frisk.

"If I had believed you stupid I shouldn't have thought you interesting, and if I hadn't thought you interesting I shouldn't have noted whether I 'knew' you, as I've called it, or not.

What I've always been conscious of is your having concealed about you somewhere no small amount of character; quite as much in fact," Fanny smiled, "as one could suppose a person of your size able to carry.

The only thing was," she explained, "that thanks to your never calling one's attention to it, I hadn't made out much more about it, and should have been vague, above all, as to WHERE you carried it or kept it.

Somewhere UNDER, I should simply have said--like that little silver cross you once showed me, blest by the Holy Father, that you always wear, out of sight, next your skin.