Page:The Awkward Age (New York, Harper and Brothers, 1899).djvu/73

BOOK SECOND: LITTLE AGGIE "It comes to the same thing?" her husband intelligently asked. "I see. And when was he with you last?"

"Not since the day he dined—but that was only last week. He'll come soon—I know from Van."

"And what does Van know?"

"Oh, all sorts of things. He has taken the greatest fancy to him."

"The old man—to Van?"

"Van to Mr. Longdon. And the other way too. Mr. Longdon has been most kind to him."

Brookenham still moved about. "Well, if he likes Van and doesn't like us, what good will that do us?"

"You would understand soon enough if you felt Van's loyalty."

"Oh, the things you expect me to feel, my dear!" Edward Brookenham lightly moaned.

"Well, it doesn't matter. But he is as loyal to me as Mr. Longdon to mamma."

The statement produced on Brookenham's part an unusual vision of the comedy of things. "Every Jenny has her Jockey!" Yet perhaps—remarkably enough—there was even more imagination in his next words. "And what sort of means—?"

"Mr. Longdon? Oh, very good. Mamma wouldn't have been the loser. Not that she cared. He must like Nanda," Mrs. Brookenham wound up.

Her companion appeared to look at the idea and then meet it. "He'll have to see her first."

"Oh, he shall see her!" Mrs. Brookenham affirmed. "It's time for her, at any rate, to sit downstairs."

"It was time, you know, I thought, a year ago."

"Yes, I know what you thought. But it wasn't."

She had spoken with decision, but he seemed unwilling to concede the point. "You admitted yourself that she was ready." 63