Page:The Awkward Age (New York, Harper and Brothers, 1899).djvu/218

THE AWKWARD AGE a dozen. They're just the people to have that blessed pair, a fine old English family."

Mr. Longdon was now fairly abreast of it. "What it comes to then, the idea you're so good as to put before me, is to bribe him to take her."

The Duchess remained bland, but she fixed him. "You say that as if you were scandalized, but if you try Mr. Van with it, I don't think he'll be. And you won't persuade me," she went on finely, "that you haven't, yourself, thought of it." She kept her eyes on him, and the effect of them, soon enough visible in his face, was such as presently to make her exult at her felicity. "You're of a limpidity, dear man!—you've only to be nudged and you confess. Consciously or unconsciously—the former, really, I'm inclined to think—you've wanted him for her." She paused an instant to enjoy her triumph; after which she continued: "And you've wanted her for him. I make you out, you'll say—for I see you coming—one of those horrible benevolent busybodies who are the worst of the class, but you've only to think a little—if I may go so far—to see that no 'making' at all is required. You've only one link with the Brooks, but that link is golden. How can we, all of us, by this time, not have grasped and admired the beauty of your feeling for Lady Julia? There it is—I make you wince: to speak of it is to profane it. Let us by all means not speak of it then, but let us act on it." He had at last turned his face from her, and it now took in, from the vantage of his high position, only the loveliness of the place and the hour, which included a glimpse of Lord Petherton and little Aggie, who, down in the garden, slowly strolled in familiar union. Each had a hand in the other's, swinging easily as they went; their talk was evidently of flowers and fruits and birds; it was quite like father and daughter. And one could see half a mile off, in short, that they weren't flirting. Our friend's 208