Page:The Awkward Age (New York, Harper and Brothers, 1899).djvu/133

BOOK THIRD: MR. LONGDON was in the air an instant. "That, no doubt, is the best way. I thank her very much. I called, after having had the honor of dining—I called, I think, three times," he went on, with a sudden displacement of the question; "but I had the misfortune each time to miss her."

She kept looking at him with her crude young clearness. "I didn't know about that. Mother thinks she's more at home than almost any one. She does it on purpose: she knows what it is," Nanda pursued, with her perfect gravity, "for people to be disappointed of finding her."

"Oh, I shall find her yet," said Mr. Longdon. "And then I hope I shall also find you."

She appeared simply to consider the possibility and, after an instant, to think well of it. "I dare say you will now, for now I shall be down."

Her companion just blinked. "In the drawing-room, you mean—always?"

It was quite what she meant. "Always. I shall see all the people who come. It will be a great thing for me. I want to hear all the talk. Mr. Mitchett says I ought to—that it helps to form the young mind. I hoped, for that reason," she went on, with the directness that made her honesty almost violent—"I hoped there would be more people here to-day."

"I'm very glad there are not!"—the old man rang equally clear. "Mr. Vanderbank kindly arranged the matter for me just this way. I met him at dinner, at your mother's, three weeks ago, and he brought me home here that night, when, as knowing you so differently, we took the liberty of talking you all over. It had the effect, naturally, of making me want to begin with you afresh—only that seemed difficult too without further help. This he good-naturedly offered me; he said"—and Mr. Longdon recovered his spirits to repeat it—"'Hang it, I'll have them here for you!'" 123