'How?'

'Your speech. Not,' he added quickly, 'that you have any provincial
accent. And even if you had been a Londoner you would not have shown
it in that way.'

He seemed to be reproving himself for a blunder, and after a short
silence asked in a tone of kindness,--

'Do you prefer the town?'

'In some ways--not in all.'

'I am glad you have relatives here, and friends. So many young
ladies come up from the country who are quite alone.'

'Yes, many.'

Their progress to familiarity could hardly have been slower. Now and
then they spoke with a formal coldness which threatened absolute
silence. Monica's brain was so actively at work that she lost
consciousness of the people who were moving about them, and at times
her companion was scarcely more to her than a voice.

They had walked along the whole front of the park, and were near
Chelsea Bridge. Widdowson gazed at the pleasure-boats lying below on
the strand, and said diffidently,--

'Would you care to go on the river?'