Page:The Awkward Age (New York, Harper and Brothers, 1899).djvu/193

BOOK FIFTH: THE DUCHESS old man, with his eyes on the golden distance, ingeniously followed it out—"I come to feel so the lurching and pitching. If I weren't a pretty fair sailor—well, as it is, my dear," he interrupted himself with a laugh, "I show you often enough what grabs I make for support." He gave a faint gasp, half amusement, half anguish, then abruptly relieved himself by a question. "To whom, in point of fact, does the place belong?"

"I'm awfully ashamed, but I'm afraid I don't know. That just came up here," the girl went on, "for Mr. Van."

Mr. Longdon seemed to think an instant. "Oh, it came up, did it? And Mr. Van couldn't tell?"

"He has quite forgotten—though he has been here before. Of course it may have been with other people," she added in extenuation. "I mean it mayn't have been theirs then any more than it's Mitchy's."

"I see. They too had just bundled in."

Nanda completed the simple history. "To-day it's Mitchy who bundles, and I believe that, really, he bundled only yesterday. He turned in his people, and here we are."

"Here we are, here we are!" her friend more gravely echoed. "Well, it's splendid!"

As if at a note in his voice her eyes, while his own still strayed away, just fixed him. "Don't you think it's really rather exciting? Everything's ready, the feast all spread, and, with nothing to blunt our curiosity but the general knowledge that there will be people and things, we comfortably take our places." He answered nothing, though her picture apparently reached him. "There are people, there are things, and all in a plenty. Had every one, when you came away, turned up?" she asked as he was still silent.

"I dare say. There were some ladies and gentlemen on the terrace that I didn't know. But I looked only 183