Page:The Awkward Age (New York, Harper and Brothers, 1899).djvu/54

THE AWKWARD AGE, on Nanda's behalf, fairly radiated obscurity. "My children don't go where they're not asked."

"I never said they did, love," the Duchess returned. "But what then do you do with her?"

"If you mean socially"—Mrs. Brookenham looked as if there might be in some distant sphere, for which she almost yearned, a maternal opportunity very different from that—"if you mean socially, I don't do anything at all. I've never pretended to do anything. You know as well as I, dear Jane, that I haven't begun yet." Jane's hostess now spoke as simply as an earnest, anxious child. She gave a vague, patient sigh. "I suppose I must begin!"

The Duchess remained for a little rather grimly silent. "How old is she—twenty?"

"Thirty!" said Mrs. Brookenham with distilled sweetness. Then with no transition of tone: "She has gone for a few days to Tishy Grendon's."

"In the country?"

"She stays with her to-night in Hill Street. They go down together to-morrow. Why hasn't Aggie been?" Mrs. Brookenham went on.

The Duchess handsomely stared. "Been where?"

"Why, here—to see Nanda."

"Here?" the Duchess echoed, fairly looking again about the room. "When is Nanda ever here?"

"Ah, you know I've given her a room of her own—the sweetest little room in the world." Mrs. Brookenham never looked so happy as when obliged to explain. "She has everything there that a girl can want."

"My dear woman," asked the Duchess, "has she sometimes her own mother?"

The men had now come in to place the tea-table, and it was the movements of the red-haired footman that Mrs. Brookenham followed. "You had better ask my child herself." 44