Page:The Awkward Age (New York, Harper and Brothers, 1899).djvu/147

BOOK FOURTH: MR. CASHMORE she does so often, because she's kind. But before I know it she leaves me again: she feels that her presence makes a difference in one's liberty of talk."

Mr. Cashmore was struck by this picture. "That's awfully charming of her."

"Isn't it too dear?" The thought of it, for Mrs. Brook, seemed fairly to open out vistas. "The modern daughter!"

"But not the ancient mother!" Mr. Cashmore smiled.

She shook her head with a world of accepted woe. "'Give me back, give me back one hour of my youth'? Oh, I haven't a single thrill left to answer a compliment. I sit here now face to face with things as they are. They come in their turn, I assure you—and they find me," Mrs. Brook sighed, "ready. Nanda has stepped on the stage, and I give her up the house. Besides," she went on musingly, "it's awfully interesting. It is the modern daughter—we're really 'doing' her, the child and I; and as the modern has always been my own note—I've gone in, I mean, frankly for my very own Time— who is one, after all, that one should pretend to decline to go where it may lead?" Mr. Cashmore was unprepared with an answer to this question, and his hostess continued in a different tone: "It's sweet her sparing one!"

This, for the visitor, was firmer ground. "Do you mean about talking before her?"

Mrs. Brook's assent was positively tender. "She won't have a difference in my freedom. It's as if the dear thing knew, don't you see? what we must keep back. She wants us not to have to think. It's quite maternal!" she mused again. Then, as if with the pleasure of presenting it to him afresh: "That's the modern daughter!"

"Well," said Mr. Cashmore, "I can't help wishing she were a trifle less considerate. In that case I might find her with you, and I may tell you frankly that I get more from her than I do from you. She has the great merit 137