Page:The Awkward Age (New York, Harper and Brothers, 1899).djvu/231

BOOK FIFTH: THE DUCHESS I've imagined—have asked myself. She's so charming—so interesting, and I feel as if I had known her always. I've thought of one thing and another to do—and then, on purpose, I haven't thought at all. That has, mostly, seemed to me best."

"Then I gather," said Mr. Longdon, "that your interest in her—"

"Hasn't the same character as her interest in me?" Vanderbank had taken him up responsively, but, after speaking, looked about for a match and lighted a new cigarette. "I'm sure you understand," he broke out, "what an extreme effort it is to me to talk of such things."

"Yes, yes. But it's just effort, only? It gives you no pleasure? I mean the fact of her passion," Mr. Longdon explained. Vanderbank had really to think a little. "However much it might give me, I should probably not be a fellow to gush. I'm a self-conscious stick of a Briton."

"But even a stick of a Briton—!" Mr. Longdon hesitated. "I've gushed, in short, to you."

"About Lady Julia?" the young man frankly asked. "Is that what you call it?"

"Say then we're sticks of Britons. You're not in any degree at all in love?"

There fell between them, before Vanderbank replied, another pause, of which he took advantage to move once more round the table. Mr. Longdon meanwhile had mounted to the high bench and sat there as if the judge were now in his proper place. At last his companion spoke. "What you're coming to is of course that you've conceived a desire."

"That's it—strange as it may seem. But, believe me, it has not been precipitate. I've watched you both."

"Oh, I knew you were watching her," said Vanderbank. 221