Page:The Awkward Age (New York, Harper and Brothers, 1899).djvu/437

BOOK TENTH: NANDA I'm bound to say I don't know quite what I did—one does these things, no doubt, with a fine unconsciousness: I should have thought indeed it was the other way round. But I assure you I accept all consequences and all responsibilities. If you don't know what's the matter between us, I'm sure I don't either. It can't be much—we'll look into it. I don't mean you and I—you mustn't be any more worried; but she and her so unwittingly faithless one. I haven't been so often, I know"—Van pleasantly kept his course. "But there's a tide in the affairs of men—and of women, too, and of girls and of every one. You know what I mean—you know it for yourself. The great thing is that—bless both your hearts!—one doesn't, one simply can't if one would, give your mother up. It's absurd to talk about it. Nobody ever did such a thing in his life. There she is, like the moon or the Marble Arch. I don't say, mind you," he candidly explained, "that every one likes her equally: that's another affair. But no one who ever has liked her can afford ever again, for any long period, to do without her. There are too many stupid people—there's too much dull company. That, in London, is to be had by the ton; your mother's intelligence, on the other hand, will always have its price. One can talk with her, for a change. She's fine, fine, fine. So, my dear child, be quiet. She's a fixed star."

"Oh, I know she is," Nanda said. "It's you—"

"Who may be only the flashing meteor?" He sat and smiled at her. "I promise you then that your words have stayed me in my course. You've made me stand as still as Joshua made the sun." With which he got straight up. "'Young,' you say she is?" he, as if to make up for it, all the more sociably continued. "It's not like anything else. She's youth. She's my youth—she was mine. And if you ever have a chance," he wound up, "do put in for me that, if she wants really to know, she's booked for my 427