Page:The Awkward Age (New York, Harper and Brothers, 1899).djvu/332

THE AWKWARD AGE himself to something that had particularly caught his eye. This was simply his own name written rather large on the cover of the French book and endowed, after he had taken the volume up, with the power to hold his attention the more closely the longer he looked at it. He uttered, for a private satisfaction, before letting the matter pass, a low, confused sound; after which, flinging the book down with some emphasis in another place, he moved to the chimney-piece, where his eyes, for a little, intently fixed the small ashy wood fire. When he raised them again it was, on the observation that the beautiful clock on the mantel was wrong, to consult once more his watch, and then give a glance, in the chimney glass, at the state of his mustache, of which he twisted, for a moment, with due care, the ends. While so engaged he became aware of something else and, quickly facing about, recognized in the doorway of the room the other figure the glass had just reflected.

"Oh you?" he said, with a quick hand-shake. "Mrs. Grendon's down?" But he had already passed with Nanda, on their greeting, back into the first room, which contained only themselves, and she had mentioned that she believed Tishy to have said 8.15, which meant of course anything people liked.

"Oh then, there'll be nobody till nine. I didn't, I suppose, sufficiently study my note; which didn't mention to me, by-the-way," Vanderbank added, "that you were to be here."

"Ah, but why should it?" the girl candidly inquired. She spoke again, however, before he could reply. "I dare say that when she wrote to you she didn't know."

"Know you would come up to meet me?" Vanderbank laughed. "Jolly, at any rate, thanks to my mistake, to have in this way a quiet moment with you. You came on ahead of your mother?"

"Oh no—I'm staying here." 322