Page:The Awkward Age (New York, Harper and Brothers, 1899).djvu/363

BOOK EIGHTH: TISHY GRENDON I confess," he said to him, "that I'd rather have that private half-hour."

"Done!" Mrs. Brook declared, "I'll send him to you. But we have, you know, as Van says, gone to pieces," she went on, twisting her pretty head and tossing it back over her shoulder to an auditor of whose approach to her from behind, though it was impossible she should have seen him, she had visibly, within a minute, become aware. "It's your marriage, Mitchy, that has darkened our old, bright air, changed us more than we even yet know, and most grossly and horribly, my dear man, changed you. You steal up in a way that gives one the creeps, whereas in the good time that's gone you always burst in with music and song. Go round where I can see you: I mayn't love you now, but at least, I suppose, I may look at you. Direct your energies," she pursued while Mitchy obeyed her, "as much as possible, please, against our uncanny chill. Pile on the fire and close up the ranks; this was our best hour, you know—and all the more that Tishy, I see, is getting rid of her superfluities. Here comes back old Van," she wound up, "vanquished, I judge, in the attempt to divert Nanda from her prey. Won't Nanda sit with poor us?" she asked of Vanderbank, who now, meeting Mitchy in range of the others, remained standing with him and as at her commands.

"I didn't of course ask her," the young man replied.

"Then what did you do?"

"I only took a little walk."

Mrs. Brook, on this, was woeful at Mitchy. "See then what we've come to. When did we ever 'walk' in your time save as a distinct part of the effect of our good things? Please return to Nanda," she said to Vanderbank, "and tell her I particularly wish her to come in for this delightful evening's end."

"She's joining us of herself now," said the Duchess, 353