Page:The Awkward Age (New York, Harper and Brothers, 1899).djvu/20

THE AWKWARD AGE more interest, he harked back. "I know the thing you just mentioned—the thing that strikes you as odd." He produced his knowledge quite with elation. "The talk." Mr. Longdon, on this, only looked at him, in silence, harder, but he went on with assurance: "Yes, the talk—for we do talk, I think." Still his guest left him without relief, only fixing him, on his suggestion, with a sort of suspended eloquence. Whatever the old man was on the point of saying, however, he disposed of in a curtailed murmur; he had already turned afresh to the series of portraits, and as he glanced at another Vanderbank spoke afresh. "It was very interesting to me to hear from you there, when the ladies had left us, how many old threads you were prepared to pick up."

Mr. Longdon had paused. "I'm an old boy who remembers the mothers," he at last replied.

"Yes, you told me how well you remember Mrs. Brookenham's."

"Oh, oh!"—and he arrived at a new subject. "This must be your sister Mary."

"Yes; it's very bad, but as she's dead—"

"Dead? Dear, dear!"

"Oh, long ago"—Vanderbank eased him off. "It's delightful of you," he went on, "to have known also such a lot of my people."

Mr. Longdon turned from his contemplation with a visible effort. "I feel obliged to you for taking it so; it mightn't—one never knows—have amused you. As I told you there, the first thing I did was to ask Fernanda about the company; and when she mentioned your name I immediately said: "Would he like me to speak to him?"

"And what did Fernanda say?"

Mr. Longdon stared. "Do you call her Fernanda?"

Vanderbank felt positively more guilty than he would have expected. "You think it too much in the manner we just mentioned?" 10