Page:The Awkward Age (New York, Harper and Brothers, 1899).djvu/126

THE AWKWARD AGE in it, looked a trifle absently from one of them to the other; but it was to Nanda he spoke. "Do you like him, Nanda?"

She showed surprise at the question. "How can I know so soon?"

"He knows already."

Mitchy, with his eyes on her, became radiant to interpret. "He knows that he's pierced to the heart!"

"The matter with him, as you call it," Vanderbank brought out, "is one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen." He looked at her as with a hope that she would understand it. "Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful!"

"Precisely," Mitchy continued, "the victim done for by one glance of the goddess!"

Nanda, motionless in her chair, fixed her other friend with clear curiosity. "'Beautiful'? Why beautiful?"

Vanderbank, about to speak, checked himself. "I won't spoil it. Have it from him!"—and, returning to the old man, he this time went out.

Mitchy and Nanda looked at each other. "But isn't it rather awful?" Mitchy demanded.

She got up without answering; she slowly came away from the table. "I think I do know if I like him."

"Well you may," Mitchy exclaimed, "after his putting before you probably, on the whole, the greatest of your triumphs."

"And I also know, I think, Mr. Mitchy, that I like you." She spoke without attention to this hyperbole.

"In spite of my ineffectual attempts to be brilliant? That's a joy," he went on, "if it's not drawn out by the mere clumsiness of my flattery." She had turned away from him, kindly enough, as if time for his talk in the air were always to be allowed him; she took in vaguely Vanderbank's books and prints. "Why didn't your mother come?" Mitchy then inquired.

At this she again looked at him. "Do you mention 116