Page:The Awkward Age (New York, Harper and Brothers, 1899).djvu/383

BOOK NINTH: VANDERBANK "Whom are you speaking of as 'her'?" Mrs. Brook asked as on feeling that something in her face had made him stop. "I wasn't referring," she explained, "to his wife."

"Oh!" said Vanderbank.

"Aggie doesn't matter," she went on.

"Oh!" he repeated. "You meant the Duchess?" he then threw off.

"Don't be silly!" she rejoined. "He may not become unhappy—God grant not!" she developed. "But if he does he'll take it out of Nanda."

Van appeared to challenge this. "'Take it out' of her?"

"Well, want to know, as some American asked me the other day of somebody, what she's 'going to do' about it."

Vanderbank, who had remained on his feet, stood still at this for a longer time than at anything yet. "But what can she 'do'—?"

"That's again just what I'm curious to see." Mrs. Brook then spoke with a glance at the clock. "But if you don't go up to her—"

"My notion of seeing her alone may be defeated by her coming down on learning that I'm here?" He had taken out his watch. "I'll go in a moment. But, as a light on that danger, would you, in the circumstances, come down?"

Mrs. Brook, however, for light, could only look darkness. "Oh, you don't love me."

Vanderbank, still with his watch, stared then, as an alternative, at the fire. "You haven't yet told me, you know, if Mr. Cashmore now comes every day."

"My dear man, how can I say? You've just your occasion to find out."

"From her, you mean?"

Mrs. Brook hesitated. "Unless you prefer the 373