Page:The Awkward Age (New York, Harper and Brothers, 1899).djvu/395

BOOK NINTH: VANDERBANK all right. It's charming, isn't it? when our troubles bring us more together. Now go up to her."

Edward kept a queer face, into which this succession of remarks introduced no light, but he finally moved, and it was only when he had almost reached the door that he stopped again. "Of course you know he has sent her no end of books."

"Mr. Longdon— of late? Oh yes, a deluge, so that her room looks like a bookseller's back shop: and all, in the loveliest bindings, the most standard English works. I not only know it, naturally, but I know—what you don't—why."

Why'?" Edward echoed. "Why but that—unless he should send her money—it's about the only kindness he can show her at a distance?"

Mrs. Brook hesitated; then, with a little suppressed sigh: "That's it."

But it still held him. "And perhaps he does send her money."

"No. Not now."

Edward lingered. "Then is he taking it out—"

"In books only?" It was wonderful—with its effect on him now visible—how she possessed her subject. "Yes, that's his delicacy—for the present."

"And you're not afraid for the future—?"

"Of his considering that the books will have worked it off? No. They're thrown in."

Just perceptibly cheered, he reached the door, where, however, he had another pause. "You don't think I had better see Van?"

She stared. "What for?"

"Why, to ask what the devil he means."

"If you should do anything so hideously vulgar," she instantly replied, "I would leave your house the next hour. Do you expect," she asked, "to be able to force your child down his throat?" 385