Page:The Awkward Age (New York, Harper and Brothers, 1899).djvu/439

BOOK TENTH: NANDA "that such a tuning-up as you've given me will last me a long time. It's like the high Alps." Then with his hand out again he added: "Have you any plans yourself?"

So many, it might have seemed, that she had to take no time to think. "I dare say I shall be away a good deal."

He candidly wondered. "With Mr. Longdon?"

"Yes—with him most."

He had another pause. "Really for a long time?"

"A long, long one, I hope."

"Your mother's willing again?"

"Oh, perfectly. And, you see, that's why."

"Why?" She had said nothing more, and he failed to understand.

"Why you mustn't too much leave her alone. Don't!" Nanda brought out.

"I won't. But," he presently added, "there are one or two things."

"Well, what are they?"

He produced in some seriousness the first. "Won't she see, after all, the Mitchys?"

"Not so much, either. That of course is now very different."

Vanderbank hesitated. "But not for you, I gather—is it? Don't you expect to see them?"

"Oh yes—I hope they'll come down."

He moved away a little—not straight to the door. "To Beccles? Funny place for them, a little though, isn't it?"

He had put the question as if for amusement, but Nanda took it literally. "Ah, not when they're invited so very very charmingly. Not when he wants them so."

"Mr. Longdon? Then that keeps up?"

That'?"— she was at a loss.

"I mean his intimacy—with Mitchy." 429