accepted, once for all, the inconsequence of
liking in conformity with the need he occasionally felt to put it on
record that he was not narrow-minded. Perhaps at bottom he most liked
Mitchy because Mitchy most liked Nanda; there hung about him still
moreover the faded fragrance of the superstition that hospitality not
declined is one of the things that "oblige." It obliged the thoughts,
for Mr. Longdon, as well as the manners, and in the especial form in
which he was now committed to it would have made him, had he really
thought any ill, ask himself what the deuce then he was doing in
the man's house. All of which didn't prevent some of Mitchy's queer
condonations--if condonations in fact they were--from not wholly, by
themselves, soothing his vague unrest, an unrest which never had been so
great as at the moment he heard the Duchess abruptly say to him: "Do
you know my idea about Nanda? It's my particular desire you should--the
reason, really, why I've thus laid violent hands on you. Nanda, my dear
man, should marry at the very first moment."

This was more interesting than he had expected, and the effect produced
by his interlocutress, as well as doubtless not lost on her, was
shown in his suppressed start. "There has been no reason why I should
attribute to you any judgement of the matter; but I've had one myself,
and I don't see why I shouldn't say frankly that it's very much the one
you express. It would be a very good thing."

"A very good thing, but none of my business?"--the Duchess's vivacity
was not unamiable.

It was on this circumstance that her companion for an instant perhaps
meditated. "It's probably not in my interest to say that. I should give
you too easy a retort. It would strike any one as quite as much your
business as mine."

"Well, it ought to be somebody's, you know. One would suppose it to be
her mother's--her father's; but in this country the parents are even
more emancipated than the children. Suppose, really, since it appears to
be nobody's affair, that you and I do make it ours. We needn't either
of us," she continued, "be concerned for the other's reasons, though I'm
perfectly ready, I assure you, to put my cards on the table. You've your
feelings--we know they're beautiful. I, on my side, have mine--for which
I don't pretend anything but that they're strong. They can dispense
with being beautiful when they're so perfectly settled. Besides, I
may mention, they're rather nice than other