Page:The Awkward Age (New York, Harper and Brothers, 1899).djvu/438

THE AWKWARD AGE old age. She's clever enough, you know"—and Vanderbank, laughing, went over for his hat—"to understand what you tell her."

Nanda took this in with due attention; she was also now on her feet. "And then she's so lovely."

"Awfully pretty!"

"I don't say it, as they say, you know," the girl continued, "because she's mother, but I often think when we're out that wherever she is—"

"There's no one that, all round, really touches her?" Vanderbank took it up with zeal. "Oh, so every one thinks, and in fact one's appreciation of the charming things that, in that way, are so intensely her own, can scarcely breathe on them all lightly enough. And then, hang it, she has perceptions—which are not things that run about the streets. She has surprises." He almost broke down for vividness. "She has little ways."

"Well, I'm glad you do like her," Nanda gravely replied.

At this again he fairly faced her, his momentary silence making it still more direct. "I like, you know, about as well as I ever liked anything, this wonderful idea of yours of putting in a plea for her solitude and her youth. Don't think I do it injustice if I say—which is saying much—that it's quite as charming as it's amusing. And now good-by."

He had put out his hand, but Nanda hesitated. "You won't wait for tea?"

"My dear child, I can't." He seemed to feel, however, that something more must be said. "We shall meet again. But it's getting on, isn't it, toward the general scatter?"

"Yes, and I hope that this year," she answered, "you'll have a good holiday."

"Oh, we shall meet before that. I shall do what can, but upon my word I feel, you know," he laughed, 428