Page:The Awkward Age (New York, Harper and Brothers, 1899).djvu/259

BOOK SIXTH: MRS. BROOK just now blurted my tale out to you. However, I of course do know," he pursued to Mitchy, "that whatever is really between us will remain between us. Let me then tell you myself exactly what's the matter." The length of his pause, after these words, showed at last that he had stopped short; on which his companions, as they waited, exchanged a sympathetic look. They waited another minute, and then he dropped into a chair, where, leaning forward, his elbows on the arms and his gaze attached to the carpet, he drew out the silence. Finally he looked at Mrs. Brook. "You make it clear."

The appeal called up for some reason her most infantine manner. "I don't think I can, dear Van—really clear. You know, however, yourself," she continued to Mitchy, "enough, by this time, about Mr. Longdon and mamma."

"Oh, rather!" Mitchy laughed.

"And about mamma and Nanda."

"Oh, perfectly: the way Nanda reminds him, and the 'beautiful loyalty' that has made him take such a fancy to her. But I've already embraced the facts—you needn't dot any i's." With another glance at his fellow-visitor Mitchy jumped up and stood there florid. "He has offered you money to marry her." He said this to Vanderbank as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

"Oh no," Mrs. Brook interposed with promptitude: "he has simply let him know before any one else that the money is there for Nanda, and that therefore—"

"First come, first served?"—Mitchy had already taken her up. "I see, I see. Then, to make her sure of the money," he inquired of Vanderbank, "you must marry her?"

"If it depends upon that, she'll never get it," Mrs. Brook returned. "Dear Van will think, conscientiously, a lot about it, but he won't do it." 249