Page:The Awkward Age (New York, Harper and Brothers, 1899).djvu/256

THE AWKWARD AGE my loyalty to you, in fact, that has in this case positively strained my discretion?"

She shook her head in mere mild despair. "'Loyalty' again is exquisite. The tact of men has a charm quite its own. And you're rather good," she continued, "as men go."

His laugh was now a little awkward, as if she had already succeeded in making him uncomfortable. "I always become aware with you sooner or later that they don't go at all—in your sense; but how am I, after all, so far out if you have put your money on another man?"

"You keep coming back to that?" she wearily sighed.

He thought a little. "No then. You've only to tell me not to, and I'll never speak of it again."

"You'll be in an odd position for speaking of it if you do really go in. You deny that you've declined," said Mrs. Brook; "which means then that you've allowed our friend to hope."

Vanderbank met it bravely. "Yes, I think he hopes."

"And imparts his hope to my child?"

This arrested the young man, but only for a moment.

"I've the most perfect faith in his wisdom with her. I trust the delicacy of his tenderness. He cares more for her," he presently added, "even than we do."

Mrs. Brook gazed away at the infinite of space. We,' my dear Van," she at last returned, "is one of your own real, wonderful touches. But there's something in what you say: I have, as between ourselves—between me and him—been backing Mitchy. That is I've been saying to him 'Wait, wait: don't, at any rate, do anything else.' Only it's just from the depth of my thought for my daughter's happiness that I've clung to this resource. He would so absolutely, so unreservedly, do anything for her." She had reached now, with her extraordinary self-control, the pitch of quiet, bland demonstration. "I want the poor thing, que diable, to have another string 246