Page:The Awkward Age (New York, Harper and Brothers, 1899).djvu/35

BOOK FIRST: LADY JULIA a form. It had to, or I don't know what would have become of me, and several things that all happened at once helped me out. My father died—I came into the little place in Suffolk. My sister, my only one, who had married and was older than I, lost within a year or two both her husband and her little boy. I offered her, in the country, a home, for her trouble was greater than any trouble of mine. She came, she staid; it went on and on, and we lived there together. We were sorry for each other, and it somehow suited us. But she died two years ago."

Vanderbank took all this in, only wishing to show—wishing by this time quite tenderly—that he even read into it deeply enough all the unsaid. He filled out another of his friend's gaps. "And here you are." Then he invited Mr. Longdon himself to make the stride. "Well, you'll be a great success."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Why, that we shall be so infatuated with you that it will make your life a burden to you. You'll see soon enough what I mean by it."

"Possibly," the old man said; "to understand you I shall have to. You speak of something that, as yet—with my race practically run—I know nothing about. I was no success as a young man. I mean of the sort that would have made most difference. People wouldn't look at me."

"Well, we shall look at you," Vanderbank declared. Then he added: "What people do you mean?" And before his friend could reply: "Lady Julia?"

Mr. Longdon's assent was mute. "Ah, she was not the worst! I mean that what made it so bad," he continued, "was that they all really liked me. Your mother, I think—as to that, the dreadful, consolatory 'liking'—even more than the others."

"My mother?"—Vanderbank was surprised. "You mean there was a question—?" 25