Page:The Awkward Age (New York, Harper and Brothers, 1899).djvu/285

BOOK SIXTH: MRS. BROOK "Instead of Mitchy? Oh," said Nanda, "I shall never marry."

Mrs. Brook, at this, turned away, moving over to the window with quickened weariness. Nanda, on her side, as if their talk had ended, went across to the sofa to take up her parasol before leaving the room, an impulse rather favored than arrested by the arrival of her brother Harold, who came in at the moment both his relatives had turned a back to the door, and who gave his sister, as she faced him, a greeting that made their mother look round. "Hallo, Nan—you are lovely! Ain't she lovely, mother?"

"No!" Mrs. Brook answered, not, however, otherwise noticing him. Her domestic despair centred at this instant all in her daughter. "Well then, we shall consider—your father and I—that he must take the consequence."

Nanda had now her hand on the door, while Harold had dropped on the sofa. He'?" she just sounded.

"I mean Mr. Longdon."

"And what do you mean by the consequence?"

"Well, it will do for the beginning of it that you'll please go down with him."

"On Saturday then? Thanks, mamma," the girl returned.

She was instantly gone, on which Mrs. Brook had more attention for her son. This, after an instant, as she approached the sofa and raised her eyes from the little table beside it, came straight out. "Where in the world is that five-pound note?"

Harold looked vacantly about him. "What five-pound note?"