Page:The Awkward Age (New York, Harper and Brothers, 1899).djvu/150

THE AWKWARD AGE Mrs. Brookenham thought. "Not simpler—no; but very much grander. She wouldn't, in the case you conceive, recognize really the need of what you conceive."

Mr. Cashmore wondered—it was almost mystic. "I don't understand you."

Mrs. Brook seeing it all from dim depths, tracked it further and further. "We've talked her over so!"

Mr. Cashmore groaned as if too conscious of it. "Indeed we have!"

"I mean we"—and it was wonderful how her accent discriminated. "We've talked you too—but of course we talk every one." She had a pause through which there glimmered a ray from luminous hours, the inner intimacy which, privileged as he was, he couldn't pretend to share; then she broke out almost impatiently: "We're looking after her—leave her to us!"

He looked suddenly so curious as to seem really envious, but he tried to throw it off. "I doubt if, after all, you're good for her."

But Mrs. Brookenham knew. "She's just the sort of person we are good for, and the thing for her is to be with us as much as possible—just live with us naturally and easily, listen to our talk, feel our confidence in her, be kept up, don't you know? by the sense of what we expect of her splendid type, and so, little by little, let our influence act. What I meant to say just now is that I do perfectly see her taking what you call presents."

"Well, then," Mr. Cashmore inquired, "what do you want more?"

Mrs. Brook hung fire an instant—she seemed on the point of telling him. "I don't see her, as I said, recognizing the obligation."

"The obligation—?"

"To give anything back. Anything at all." Mrs. Brook was positive. "The comprehension of petty calculations? Never!" 140