that I shall speak to Mr. Mitchett?"

"Don't flatter yourself he won't speak to YOU!"

Mr. Longdon made it out. "As supposing me, you mean, an interested
party?"

She clapped her gloved hands for joy. "It's a delight to hear you
practically admit that you ARE one! Mr. Mitchett will take anything from
you--above all perfect candour. It isn't every day one meets YOUR kind,
and he's a connoisseur. I leave it to you--I leave it to you."

She spoke as if it were something she had thrust bodily into his
hands and wished to hurry away from. He put his hands behind
him--straightening himself a little, half-kindled, still half-confused.
"You're all extraordinary people!"

She gave a toss of her head that showed her as not so dazzled. "You're
the best of us, caro mio--you and Aggie: for Aggie's as good as you.
Mitchy's good too, however--Mitchy's beautiful. You see it's not only
his money. He's a gentleman. So are you. There aren't so many. But we
must move fast," she added more sharply.

"What do you mean by fast?"

"What should I mean but what I say? If Nanda doesn't get a husband early
in the business--"

"Well?" said Mr. Longdon, as she appeared to pause with the weight of
her idea.

"Why she won't get one late--she won't get one at all. One, I mean, of
the kind she'll take. She'll have been in it over-long for THEIR taste."

She had moved, looking off and about her--little Aggie always on her
mind--to the flight of steps, where she again hung fire; and had really
ended by producing in him the manner of keeping up with her to challenge
her. "Been in what?"

She went down a few steps while he stood with his face full of
perceptions strained and scattered. "Why in the air they themselves have
infected for her!"

V

Late that night, in the smoking room, when the smokers--talkers and
listeners alike--were about to disperse, Mr. Longdon asked Vanderbank to
stay, and then it was that the young man, to whom all the evening he had
not addressed a word, could make out why, a little unnaturally, he had
prolonged his vigil. "I've something particular to say to you and I've
been waiting. I hope you don't mind. It's rather important." Vanderbank
expressed on the spot the liveliest desire to oblige him and, quickly
lighting another cigarette, mounted again to the deep divan with which
a part of the place was furnished. The smoking-room at Mertle was not
unworthy of the general nobleness, and the fastidious spectator h