Page:The Awkward Age (New York, Harper and Brothers, 1899).djvu/407

BOOK NINTH: VANDERBANK He had almost the air, as he waited for her to go, of the master of the house, for she had made herself before him, as he stood with his back to the fire, as humble as a relegated visitor. "Oh, just as much. Where's the difference? Aren't our ties in fact rather multiplied?"

"That's the way I want to feel it. And from the moment you recognize with me—"

"Yes?"

"Well, that he never, you know, really would—"

He took her mercifully up. "There's no harm done?" Mitchy thought of it.

It made her still hover. "Nanda will be rich. Toward that you can help, and it's really, I may now tell you, what it came into my head you should see our friend here for."

He maintained his waiting attitude. "Thanks, thanks."

"You're our guardian angel!" she exclaimed.

At this he laughed out. "Wait till you see what Mr. Longdon does!"

But she took no notice. "I want you to see before I go that I've done nothing for myself. Van, after all—" she mused.

"Well?"

"Only hates me. It isn't as with you," she said. "I've really lost him."

Mitchy, for an instant, with the eyes that had shown his tears, glared away into space. "He can't, very positively, you know, now like any of us. He misses a fortune."

"There it is!" Mrs. Brook once more observed. Then she had a comparative brightness. "I'm so glad you don't!" He gave another laugh, but she was already facing Mr. Tatton, who had again answered the bell. "Show Mr. Longdon up."

"I'm to tell him, then, it's at your request?" Mitchy asked when the butler had gone. 397