Page:The Awkward Age (New York, Harper and Brothers, 1899).djvu/199

BOOK FIFTH: THE DUCHESS She showed somehow that she wouldn't flinch. "You weren't asked till after he had made sure I'd come. We've become, you and I," she smiled, "one of the couples who are invited together."

These were couples, his speculative eye seemed to show, he didn't even yet know about, and if he mentally took them up a moment it was only, promptly, to drop them. "I don't think you put it quite strong enough, you know."

"That Mitchy is hard hit? He puts it so strong himself that it will surely do for both of us. I'm a part of what I just spoke of—his indifference and magnificence. It's as if he could only afford to do what's not vulgar. He might perfectly marry a Duke's daughter, but that would be vulgar—would be the absolute necessity and ideal of nine out of ten of the sons of shoemakers made ambitious by riches. Mitchy says 'No; I take my own line; I go in for a beggar-maid.' And it's only because I'm a beggar maid that he wants me."

"But there are plenty of others," Mr. Longdon objected.

"Oh, I admit I'm the one he least dislikes. But if I had any money," Nanda went on, "or if I were really good-looking—for that to-day, the real thing, will do as well as being a Duke's daughter—he wouldn't come near me. And I think that ought to settle it. Besides, he must marry Aggie. She's a beggar-maid too—as well as an angel; so there's nothing against it."

Mr. Longdon stared, but even in his surprise seemed to take from the swiftness with which she made him move over the ground a certain agreeable glow. "Does 'Aggie' like him?"

"She likes every one. As I say, she's an angel—but a real, real, real one. The kindest man in the world is therefore the proper husband for her. If Mitchy wants to do something thoroughly nice," she declared with the 189