Page:The Awkward Age (New York, Harper and Brothers, 1899).djvu/172

THE AWKWARD AGE her off in the shortest possible time and in the best possible conditions. No, the interest is, much more, in the way the Duchess herself steers."

"Ah, she's in a boat," Mr. Cashmore fully concurred, "that will take a good bit of that!"

It is not for Mr. Longdon's historian to overlook that if he was not unnaturally mystified, he was yet also visibly interested. "What boat is she in?"

He had addressed his curiosity, with politeness, to Mr. Cashmore, but they were all arrested by the wonderful way in which Mrs. Brook managed to smile at once very dimly, very darkly, and yet make it take them all in. "I think you must tell him, Van."

"Heaven forbid!"—and Vanderbank turned away.

"I'll tell him like a shot—if you really give me leave," said Mr. Cashmore, for whom any scruple referred itself manifestly not to the subject of the information, but to the presence of a lady.

"I don't give you leave, and I beg you'll hold your tongue," Mrs. Brookenham replied. "You handle such matters with a minuteness—! In short," she broke off to Mr. Longdon, "he would tell you a good deal more than you'll care to know. She is in a boat—but she's an experienced mariner. Basta, as she would say. Do you know Mitchy?" Mrs. Brook suddenly asked.

"Oh yes, he knows Mitchy"—Vanderbank had approached again.

"Then make him tell him"—she put it before the young man as a charming turn for them all. "Mitchy can be refined when he tries."

"Oh dear—when Mitchy 'tries'!" Vanderbank laughed. "I think I should rather, for the job, offer him to Mr. Longdon as abandoned to his native wild impulse."

"I like Mr. Mitchett," the old man said, endeavoring to look his hostess straight in the eye, and speaking as if 162