on my recognition of all the reserves of goodness that, for his joke,
he had been able to draw upon.



XII


The particular impression I had received proved in the morning light,
I repeat, not quite successfully presentable to Mrs. Grose,
though I reinforced it with the mention of still another remark
that he had made before we separated. "It all lies in half a
dozen words," I said to her, "words that really settle the matter.
'Think, you know, what I MIGHT do!' He threw that off to show
me how good he is. He knows down to the ground what he `might' do.
That's what he gave them a taste of at school."

"Lord, you do change!" cried my friend.

"I don't change--I simply make it out. The four, depend upon it,
perpetually meet. If on either of these last nights you had
been with either child, you would clearly have understood.
The more I've watched and waited the more I've felt that if
there were nothing else to make it sure it would be made
so by the systematic silence of each. NEVER, by a slip
of the tongue, have they so much as alluded to either of their
old friends, any more than Miles has alluded to his expulsion.
Oh, yes, we may sit here and look at them, and they may show
off to us there to their fill; but even while they pretend
to be lost in their fairytale they're steeped in their vision