Page:The Awkward Age (New York, Harper and Brothers, 1899).djvu/83

BOOK SECOND: LITTLE AGGIE down—it's the train the cyclist takes when his tire's deflated. When that happens to your tire, Mrs. Brook, you'll let me know. And you do make me wonder just now," he confessed, "why you're taking such particular precautions and throwing out such a cloud of skirmishers. If you want to shoot me dead a single bullet will do." He faltered but an instant before completing his sense. "Where you really want to come out is at the fact that Nanda loathes me, and that I might as well give up asking for her."

"Are you quite serious?" his companion after a moment asked. "Do you really and truly like her, Mitchy?"

"I like her as much as I dare to—as much as a man can like a girl when, from the very first of his seeing her and judging her, he has also seen, and seen with all the reasons, that there's no chance for him whatever. Of course, with all that, he has done his best not to let himself go. But there are moments," Mr. Mitchett ruefully added, "when it would relieve him awfully to feel free for a good spin."

"I think you exaggerate," his hostess replied, "the difficulties in your way. What do you mean by 'all the reasons'?"

"Why, one of them I've already mentioned. I make her flesh creep."

"My own Mitchy!" Mrs. Brookenham protestingly moaned. "The other is that—very naturally—she's in love."

"With whom, under the sun?"

Mrs. Brookenham had, with her startled stare, met his eyes long enough to have taken something from him before he next spoke. "You really have never suspected? With whom conceivably but old Van?"

"Nanda's in love with old Van?"—the degree to which she had never suspected was scarce to be expressed. "Why, he's twice her age—he has seen her in a pinafore, 73