er kind of brute on the other."

Mr. Longdon listened with consideration--with a beautiful little air
indeed of being, in his all but finally benighted state, earnestly open
to information on such points from a magnificent young man. "He doesn't
want, you mean, to be a coxcomb?--and he doesn't want to be cruel?"

Vanderbank, visibly preoccupied, produced a faint kind smile. "Oh you
KNOW!"

"I? I should know less than any one." Mr. Longdon had turned away from
the table on this, and the eyes of his companion, who after an instant
had caught his meaning, watched him move along the room and approach
another part of the divan. The consequence of the passage was that
Vanderbank's only rejoinder was presently to say: "I can't tell you
how long I've imagined--have asked myself. She's so charming, so
interesting, and I feel as if I had known her always. I've thought of
one thing and another to do--and then, on purpose, haven't thought at
all. That has mostly seemed to me best."

"Then I gather," said Mr. Longdon, "that your interest in her--?"

"Hasn't the same character as her interest in ME?" Vanderbank had taken
him up responsively, but after speaking looked about for a match and
lighted a new cigarette. "I'm sure you understand," he broke out, "what
an extreme effort it is to me to talk of such things!"

"Yes, yes. But it's just effort only? It gives you no pleasure? I mean
the fact of her condition," Mr. Longdon explained.

Vanderbank had really to think a little. "However much it might give me
I should probably not be a fellow to gush. I'm a self-conscious stick of
a Briton."

"But even a stick of a Briton--!" Mr. Longdon faltered and hovered.
"I've gushed in short to YOU."

"About Lady Julia?" the young man frankly asked. "Is gushing what you
call what you've done?"

"Say then we're sticks of Britons. You're not in any degree at all in
love?"

There fell between them, before Vanderbank replied, another pause, of
which he took advantage to move once more round the table. Mr. Longdon
meanwhile had mounted to the high bench and sat there as if the judge
were now in his proper place. At last his companion spoke. "What you're
coming to is of course that you've conceived a desire."

"That's it--strange as it may seem. But believe me, it has not been
precipitate. I've watched you both."

"Oh I knew you were watching HER," said Vanderbank.

"To such a tune that I've made up my mind. I want her so to marry--!"
B