Page:The Awkward Age (New York, Harper and Brothers, 1899).djvu/386

THE AWKWARD AGE shall probably learn, as we used to be told as children, 'all in good time,' I can wait till the light comes out of itself?"

Vanderbank still lingered. "You are deep!"

"You've only to be deeper."

"That's easy to say. I'm afraid, at any rate, you won't think I am," he pursued after a pause, "if I ask you what in the world—since Harold does keep Lady Fanny so quiet—Cashmore still requires Nanda's direction for?"

"Ah, find out!" said Mrs. Brook.

"Isn't Carrie Donner quite shelved?"

"Find out," she repeated.

Vanderbank had reached the door and had his hand on the latch, but there was still something else. "You scarce suppose, I imagine, that she has come to like him 'for himself'?"

"Find out!" And Mrs. Brook, who was now on her feet, turned away.

He watched her a moment more, then checked himse and left her.

 XXXII

She remained alone for ten minutes, at the end which her reflections—they would have been seen to be deep—were interrupted by the entrance of her husband. The interruption was indeed not so great as if the couple had not met, as they almost invariably met, in silence: she took, at all events, to begin with, no more account of his presence than to hand him a cup of tea accompanied with nothing but cream and sugar. Her having no word for him, however, committed her no more to implying that he had come in only for his refreshment than it would have committed her to say: "Here it is, Edward dear—just as you like it; so take it and sit down and be 376