Page:The Awkward Age (New York, Harper and Brothers, 1899).djvu/405

BOOK NINTH: VANDERBANK us at last know where we are. You of course, for yourself," Mrs. Brook wound up, "see that."

"Where we are?" Mitchy took a turn and came back. "But what then did Van come for? If you speak of a retreat, there must have been an advance."

"Oh," said Mrs. Brook, "he simply wanted not to look too brutal. After so much absence he could come."

"Well, if he established that he wasn't brutal, where was the retreat?"

"In his not going up to Nanda. He came—frankly—to do that, but made up his mind on second thoughts that he couldn't risk even being civil to her."

Mitchy had visibly warmed to his work. "Well, and what made the difference?"

She wondered. "What difference?"

"Why, of the effect, as you say, of his second thoughts. Thoughts of what?"

"Oh," said Mrs. Brook suddenly and as if it were quite simple—"I know that! Suspicions."

"And of whom?"

"Why, of you, you goose. Of your not having done—"

"Well, what?" he persisted as she paused.

"How shall I say it? The best thing for yourself. And of Nanda's feeling that. Don't you see?"

In the effort of seeing, or perhaps indeed in the full act of it, poor Mitchy glared as never before. "Do you mean Van's jealous of me?"

Pressed as she was, there was something in his face that momentarily hushed her. "There it is!" she achieved, however, at last.

"Of me?" Mitchy went on.

What was in his face so suddenly and strangely was the look of rising tears—at sight of which, as from a compunction as prompt, she showed a lovely flush. "There it is, there it is," she repeated. "You ask me for a reason, and it's the only one I see. Of course if you don't 395