Page:The Awkward Age (New York, Harper and Brothers, 1899).djvu/24

THE AWKWARD AGE "Ah, to some great man of course."

Vanderbank thought. "I don't know." He gave a vague but expressive sigh. "She's rather lovely, little Aggie."

Mr. Longdon looked conspicuously subtle. "Then perhaps you're the man—"

"Do I look like a great one?" Vanderbank broke in.

His visitor, turning away from him, again embraced the room. "Oh dear, yes!"

"Well then, to show how right you are, there's the young lady." He pointed to an object on one of the tables, a small photograph with a very wide border of something that looked like crimson fur.

Mr. Longdon took up the picture; he was serious now. "She's very beautiful—but she's not a little girl."

"At Naples they develop early. She's only seventeen or eighteen, I suppose; but I never know how old—or at least how young—girls are, and I'm not sure. An aunt, at any rate, has of course nothing to conceal. She is extremely pretty—with extraordinary red hair and a complexion to match; great rarities, I believe, in that race and latitude. She gave me the portrait—frame and all. The frame is Neapolitan enough, and little Aggie is charming." Then Vanderbank subjoined: "But not so charming as little Nanda."

"Little Nanda?—have you got her? The old man was all eagerness.

"She's over there beside the lamp—also a present from the original."

 II

Mr. Longdon had gone to the place—little Nanda was in glazed white wood. He took her up and held her out; for a moment he said nothing, but presently, over his glasses, rested on his host a look intenser even than his 14