Page:The Awkward Age (New York, Harper and Brothers, 1899).djvu/116

THE AWKWARD AGE. But he threw off after an instant an answer clearly intended to meet the case. "He thinks he hasn't the means. He has great ideas of what a fellow must offer a woman."

Mr. Longdon's eyes travelled awhile over the amenities about him. "He hasn't such a view of himself alone—"

"As to make him think he's enough as he stands? No," said Mitchy, "I don't fancy he has a very awful view of himself alone. And since we are burning this incense under his nose," he added, "it's also my impression that he has no private means. Women in London want so much."

Mr. Longdon was silent a little. "A very great deal, I dare say."

"Oh, a tremendous lot. They want everything. I mean the sort of women he lives with. A modest man—who's also poor—isn't in it. I give you that, at any rate, as his view. There are lots of them that would—and only too glad—'love him for himself'; but things are much mixed, and these not necessarily the right ones, and at all events he doesn't see it. The result of which is that he's waiting."

"Waiting to feel himself in love?"

Mitchy just hesitated. "Well, we're talking of marriage. Of course you'll say there are women with money. There are"—he seemed for a moment to meditate—"dreadful ones!"

The two men, on this, exchanged a long regard. "He mustn't do that."

Mitchy again hesitated. "He won't."

Mr. Longdon had also a silence, which he presently terminated by one of his jerks into motion. "He sha'n't!"

Once more Mitchy watched him revolve a little, but now, familiarly, yet with a sharp emphasis, he himself 106