Page:The Awkward Age (New York, Harper and Brothers, 1899).djvu/459

BOOK TENTH: NANDA "Oh!" said Mr. Longdon.

"But don't get up." She raised her hand. "Don't!"

"Why should I?" He had never budged.

"He was most kind; staid half an hour and, when I told him you were coming, left a good message for you."

Mr. Longdon appeared to wait for this tribute, which was not immediately produced. "What do you call a 'good' message?"

"I'm to make it all right with you."

"To make what?"

"Why, that he has not, for so long, been to see you or written to you. That he has seemed to neglect you."

Nanda's visitor looked so far about as to take the neighborhood in general into the confidence of his surprise. "To neglect me?"

"Well, others too, I believe—with whom we're not concerned. He has been so taken up. But you above all."

Mr. Longdon showed, on this, a coldness that somehow spoke for itself as the greatest with which he had ever in his life met an act of reparation, and that was infinitely confirmed by his sustained immobility. "But of what have I complained?"

"Oh, I don't think he fancies you've complained."

"And how could he have come to see me," he continued, "when for so many months past I've been so little in town?"

He was not more ready with objections, however, than his companion had by this time become with answers. "He must have been thinking of the time of your present stay. He said he hadn't seen you."

"He has quite sufficiently tried—he has left cards," Mr. Longdon returned. "What more does he want?"

Nanda looked at him with her long, grave straightness, which had often a play of light beyond any smile. "Oh, you know, he does want more." 449