Page:The Awkward Age (New York, Harper and Brothers, 1899).djvu/197

BOOK FIFTH: THE DUCHESS weeks, but even for that time it's a handsome compliment. He doesn't care what he does. It's his way of amusing himself. He amuses himself at our expense," the girl continued.

"Well, I hope that makes up, my dear, for the rate at which we're doing so at his!"

"His amusement," said Nanda, "is to see us believe what he says."

Mr. Longdon thought a moment. "Really, my child, you're most acute."

"Oh, I haven't watched life for nothing! Mitchy doesn't care," she repeated.

Her companion seemed divided between a desire to draw and a certain fear to encourage her. "Doesn't care for what?"

She reflected an instant, in her seriousness, and it might have added to Mr. Longdon's impression of her depth. "Well, for himself. I mean for his money. For anything any one may think. For Lord Petherton, for instance, really at all. Lord Petherton thinks he has helped him—thinks, that is, that Mitchy thinks he has. But Mitchy's more amused at him than at anybody else. He takes every one in."

"Every one but you?"

"Oh, I like him."

"My poor child, you're of a profundity!" Mr. Longdon murmured.

He spoke almost uneasily, but she was not too much alarmed to continue lucid. "And he likes me, and I know just how much—and just how little. He's the most generous man in the world. It pleases him to feel that he's indifferent and splendid—there are so many things it makes up to him for." The old man listened with attention, and his young friend, conscious of it, proceeded as on ground of which she knew every inch.

"He's the son, as you know, of a great bootmaker—'to 187