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 He tried to put purpose into his glance back to her as though he would say "Let me be of some use to you. I am here for that. You can trust me."

He felt that she knew that she could. She might, such was her case, trust any one at this crisis but she had been watching him, he felt sure, throughout the meal, listening to his voice, studying his movements, wondering, perhaps, whether he too were in this conspiracy against her.

He had the sudden conviction that on an instant she had resolved that she could trust him, and had he had time to do as was usual with him, to step back and regard himself, he would have been amazed at his own happiness.

They had come to the dessert. Crispin, as though he had no purpose in life but to make every one happy, was cracking walnuts for his daughter-in-law and talking about a thousand things. There was nothing apparently that he did not know and nothing that he did not wish to hand over to his dear friends.

"It is too bad that I can't show you my 'Hundred Guilders.'" He cracked a walnut, and his soft boneless fingers seemed suddenly to be endued with an amazing strength. "But why shouldn't I? What are you doing this evening?"

"I have no plans," said Harkness; "I thought I would go perhaps down to the market and look at the fun."