Page:The Awkward Age (New York, Harper and Brothers, 1899).djvu/410

THE AWKWARD AGE "Miss Brookenham," the escape from their hostess—these were all things Mitchy could quickly take in, and they gave him in a moment his light for not missing his occasion. "I see, I see—I shall make you keep Nanda waiting. But there's something I shall ask you to take from me as quite a sufficient basis for that: which is simply that after all, you know—for I think you do know—don't you?—I'm nearly as much attached to her as you are."

Mr. Longdon had looked suddenly apprehensive and even a trifle embarrassed, but he spoke with due presence of mind. "Of course I understand that perfectly. If you hadn't liked her so much—"

"Well?" said Mitchy, as he checked himself.

"I would never, last year, have gone to stay with you."

"Thank you!" Mitchy laughed.

"Though I like you also—and extremely," Mr. Longdon gravely pursued, "for yourself."

Mitchy made a sign of acknowledgment. "You like me better for her than you do for anybody else but myself."

"You put it, I think, correctly. Of course I've not seen so much of Nanda—if between my age and hers, that is, any real contact is possible—without knowing that she now regards you as one of the very best of her friends, treating you, I almost fancy, with a degree of confidence—"

Mitchy gave a laugh of interruption. "That she doesn't show even to you?"

Mr, Longdon's poised glasses faced him. "Even! I don't mind," the old man went on, "as the opportunity has come up, telling you frankly—and as from my time of life to your own—all the comfort I take in the sense that in any case of need or trouble she might look to you for whatever advice or support the affair might demand." 400