Page:The Awkward Age (New York, Harper and Brothers, 1899).djvu/114

THE AWKWARD AGE must join. But if Van has got hold of you," he added, "or you've got hold of him, you have joined. We're not quite so numerous as I could wish, and we want variety; we want just what I'm sure you'll bring us—a fresh eye, an outside mind."

Mr. Longdon wore for a minute the air of a man knowing but too well what it was to be asked to put down his name. "My friend Vanderbank swaggers so little that it's rather from you than from himself that I seem to catch the idea—"

"Of his being a great figure among us? I don't know what he may have said to you, or have suppressed; but you may take it from me—as between ourselves, you know—that he's very much the best of us. Old Van, in fact—if you really want a candid opinion," and Mitchy shone still brighter as he talked, "is formed for a distinctly higher sphere. I should go so far as to say that on our level he's positively wasted."

"And are you very sure you're not?" Mr. Longdon asked with a smile.

"Dear no—I'm in my element. My element is to grovel before Van. You've only to look at me, as you must already have made out, to see I'm everything dreadful that he isn't. But you've seen him for yourself—I needn't tell you!" Mitchy ejaculated.

Mr. Longdon, as if under the coercion of so much confidence, had stood in place longer than for any previous moment, and the spell continued for a minute after Mitchy had paused. Then nervously, abruptly, he turned away, and his friend watched him rather aimlessly wander. "Our host has spoken of you to me in high terms," he said as he came back. "You would have no fault to find with them."

Mitchy took it with his highest light. "I know, from your taking the trouble to remember that, how much what I've said of him pleases and touches you. We're a 104