my insisting on your time of life--but you HAVE seen some?" The
question was of such interest that he had already begun to follow it.
"Oh the charm of talk with some one who can fill out one's idea of
the really distinguished women of the past! If I could get you," he
continued, "to be so awfully valuable as to fill out mine!"

His fellow visitor, on this, made, in a pause, a nearer approach to
taking visibly his measure. "Are you sure you've got an idea?" Mr.
Mitchett brightly thought. "No. That must be just why I appeal to you.
And it can't therefore be for confirmation, can it?" he went on. "It
must be for the beautiful primary hint altogether."

His interlocutor began, with a shake of the eyeglass, to shift and sidle
again, as if distinctly excited by the subject. But it was as if his
very excitement made the poor gentleman a trifle coy. "Are there no nice
ones now?"

"Oh yes, there must be lots. In fact I know quantities."

This had the effect of pulling the stranger up. "Ah 'quantities'! There
it is."

"Yes," said Mitchy, "fancy the 'lady' in her millions. Have you come
up to London, wondering, as you must, about what's happening--for
Vanderbank mentioned, I think, that you HAVE come up--in pursuit of
her?"

"Ah," laughed the subject of Vanderbank's information, "I'm afraid
'pursuit,' with me, is over."

"Why, you're at the age," Mitchy returned, "of--the most exquisite form
of it. Observation."

"Yet it's a form, I seem to see, that you've not waited for my age
to cultivate." This was followed by a decisive headshake. "I'm not an
observer. I'm a hater."

"That only means," Mitchy explained, "that you keep your observation for
your likes--which is more admirable than prudent. But between my fear
in the one direction and my desire in the other," he lightly added, "I
scarcely know how to present myself. I must study the ground. Meanwhile
HAS old Van told you much about me?"

Old Van's possible confidant, instead of immediately answering, again
assumed the pince-nez. "Is that what you call him?"

"In general, I think--for shortness."

"And also"--the speaker hesitated--"for esteem?"

Mitchy laughed out. "For veneration! Our disrespects, I think, are
all tender, and we wouldn't for the world do to a person we don't like
anything so nice as to call him, or even to call her, don't you know--?"

His questioner had quickly looked as if he knew. "Something pleasant and
vulgar?"

Mitchy's gaiety deepened