Page:The Awkward Age (New York, Harper and Brothers, 1899).djvu/39

BOOK FIRST: LADY JULIA, at all events, is that, as I gather, we made on you this evening, in a particular way, a collective impression—something in which our trifling varieties are merged." His visitor's face, at this, appeared to say to him that he was putting the case in perfection, so that he was encouraged to go on. "There was something particular with which you were not altogether pleasantly struck."

Mr. Longdon, who, decidedly, changed color easily, showed in his clear cheek the effect at once of feeling a finger on his fault and of admiration for his companion's insight. But he accepted the situation. "I couldn't help noticing your tone."

"Do you mean its being so low?"

Mr. Longdon, who had smiled at first, looked grave now. "Do you really want to know?"

"Just how you were affected? I assure you that there's nothing, at this moment, I desire nearly so much."

"I'm no judge," the old man went on; "I'm no critic; I'm no talker myself. I'm old-fashioned and narrow and dull. I've lived for years in a hole. I'm not a man of the world."

Vanderbank considered him with a benevolence, a geniality of approval, that he literally had to hold in check for fear of seeming to patronize. "There's not one of us who can touch you. You're delightful, you're wonderful, and I'm intensely curious to hear you," the young man pursued. "Were we absolutely odious?" Before his friend's puzzled, finally almost pained face, such an air of appreciating so much candour, yet looking askance at so much freedom, he could only endeavor to smooth the way and light the subject. "You see we don't in the least know where we are. We're lost—and you find us." Mr. Longdon, as he spoke, had prepared at last really to go, reaching the door with a manner that denoted, however, by no means so much satiety as an 29