Page:The Awkward Age (New York, Harper and Brothers, 1899).djvu/112

THE AWKWARD AGE with some one who can meet one's conception of the really distinguished women of the past! If I could get you," he continued, "to be so awfully valuable as to meet mine!"

His fellow-visitor, on this, made, in a pause, a nearer approach to taking visibly his measure. "Are you sure youVe got one?"

Mr. Mitchett brightly thought. "No. That must be just why I appeal to you. And it can't therefore be for confirmation, can it?" he went on. "It must therefore be for the beautiful primary hint altogether."

His interlocutor began, with a shake of the eye-glass, to shift and sidle again, as if distinctly excited by the subject. But it was as if his very excitement made him a trifle coy. "Are there no nice ones now?"

"Oh yes, there must be lots. In fact I know quantities."

This had the effect of pulling the stranger up. *Ah, 'quantities'! There it is."

"Yes," said Mitchy, "fancy the 'lady' in her millions. Have you come up to London, wondering, as you must, about what's happening—for Vanderbank mentioned, I think, that you have come up—in pursuit of her?"

"Ah," laughed the subject of Vanderbank's information, "I'm afraid 'pursuit,' with me, is over."

"Why, you're at the age," Mitchy returned, "of the most exquisite form of it. Observation."

"Yet it's a form, I seem to see, that you've not waited for my age to cultivate." This was followed by a decisive head-shake. "I'm not an observer. I'm a hater."

"That only means," Mitchy explained, "that you keep your observation for your likes—which is more admirable than prudent. But between my fear in the one direction and my desire in the other," he lightly added, "I scarcely know how to present myself. I must study the ground. Meanwhile has old Van told you much about me?" 102