Page:The Awkward Age (New York, Harper and Brothers, 1899).djvu/425

BOOK TENTH: NANDA and natural. There are such a lot of relations in which one isn't, in which it doesn't pay, in which 'ease,' in fact, would be the greatest of troubles and 'nature' the greatest of falsities. However," he continued, while he suddenly got up to change the place in which he had put his hat, "I don't really know why I'm preaching at such a rate, for I've a perfect consciousness of not myself requiring it. One does, half the time, preach more or less for one's self, eh? I'm not mistaken, at all events, I think, about the right thing with you. And a hint's enough for you, I'm sure, on the right thing with me." He had been looking all round while he talked, and had twice shifted his seat; so that it was quite in consonance with his general admiring notice that the next impression he broke out with should have achieved some air of relevance. "What extraordinarily lovely flowers you have and how charming you've made everything! You're always doing something—women are always changing the position of their furniture. If you happen to come in in the dark—no matter how well you know the place—you sit down on a teacup or a puppy-dog. But of course, you'll say, one doesn't come in in the dark, or at least, if one does, deserves what one gets. Only you know the way some women keep their rooms. I'm bound to say you don't, do you?—you don't go in for flower-pots in the windows and curtains on curtains. Why should you? You have got a lot to show!" He rose, with this, for the third time, as the better to command the scene. "What I mean is that sofa—which, by-the-way, is awfully good: you do, my dear Nanda, go it! It certainly was here, the last time, wasn't it? and this thing was there. The last time—I mean the last time I was up here—was fearfully long ago: when, by-the-way, was it? But you see I have been and that I remember it. And you've a lot more things now. You're laying up treasure. Really, the increase of luxury—! What an awfully jolly lot of books— 415