Page:The Awkward Age (New York, Harper and Brothers, 1899).djvu/461

BOOK TENTH: NANDA "Yes—that must make a difference. But being a woman, in such a case, has then," Nanda went on, "its advantages."

On this point perhaps her friend might presently have been taken as relaxing. "It strikes me that even at that, the advantages are mainly for others. I'm glad, God knows, that you're not also a young man."

"Then we're suited all round."

She had spoken with a promptitude that appeared again to act on him slightly as an irritant, for he met it—with more delay—by a long, derisive murmur. "Oh, my pride—!" But this she in no manner took up; so that he was left for a little to his thoughts. "That's what you were plotting when you told me the other day that you wanted time?"

"Ah, I wasn't plotting—though I was, I confess, trying to work things out. That particular idea of simply asking Mr. Van, by letter, to present himself—that particular flight of fancy hadn't in fact then at all occurred to me."

"It never occurred, I'm bound to say, to me," said Mr. Longdon. "I've never thought of writing to him."

"Very good. But you haven't the reasons. I wanted to attack him."

"Not about me, I hope to God!" Mr. Longdon, distinctly a little paler, rejoined.

"Don't be afraid. I think I had an instinct of how you would have taken that. It was about mother."

"Oh!" said her visitor.

"He has been worse to her than to you," she continued. "But he'll make it all right."

Mr. Longdon's attention retained its grimness. "If he has such a remedy for the more then, what has he for the less?"

Nanda, however, was but for an instant checked. "Oh, 451