Page:The Awkward Age (New York, Harper and Brothers, 1899).djvu/103

BOOK SECOND: LITTLE AGGIE occurred among the three ladies, in connection with the circumstance, a somewhat striking exchange of endearments. Mr. Mitchett, observing this, expressed himself suddenly as diverted. "By Jove, they're kissing—she's in Lady Fanny's arms!" But his hilarity was still to deepen. "And Lady Fanny, by Jove, is in Mrs. Brook's!"

"Oh, it's all beyond me! the Duchess cried; and the little wail of her baffled imagination had almost the austerity of a complaint.

"Not a bit— they're all right. Mrs. Brook has acted!" Mitchy went on.

"Oh, it isn't that she doesn't 'act'!" his interlocutress ejaculated.

Mrs. Donner's face presented, as she now crossed the room, something that resembled the ravage of a death-struggle between its artificial and its natural elegance. "Well," Mitchy said with decision as he caught it—"I back Nanda." And while a whiff of derision reached him from the Duchess, "Nothing has happened!" he murmured.

As if to reward him for an indulgence that she must much more have divined than overheard, the visitor approached him with her bravery of awkwardness. "I go on Friday to my sister's, where I shall find Nanda Brookenham. Can I take her any message from you?"

Mr. Mitchett showed a tint that might positively have been reflected. "Why should you dream of her expecting one?"

"Oh," said the Duchess, with a gaiety that but half carried off her asperity, "Mrs. Brook must have told Mrs. Donner to ask you!"

The latter lady, at this, rested strange eyes on the speaker, and they had perhaps something to do with a quick flare of Mitchy's wit. "Tell her, please—if, as I suppose you came here to ask the same of her mother— 93