ut on the odd little quaver of longing with which he brought it out the
elder man fairly hung.

"Well?" said Vanderbank.

"Well, so that on the day she does she'll come into the interest of a
considerable sum of money--already very decently invested--that I've
determined to settle on her."

Vanderbank's instant admiration flushed across the room. "How awfully
jolly of you--how beautiful!"

"Oh there's a way to show practically your appreciation of it."

But Vanderbank, for enthusiasm, scarcely heard him. "I can't tell you
how admirable I think you." Then eagerly, "Does Nanda know it?" he
demanded.

Mr. Longdon, after a wait, spoke with comparative dryness. "My idea has
been that for the present you alone shall."

Vanderbank took it in. "No other man?"

His companion looked still graver. "I need scarcely say that I depend on
you to keep the fact to yourself."

"Absolutely then and utterly. But that won't prevent what I think of it.
Nothing for a long time has given me such joy."

Shining and sincere, he had held for a minute Mr. Longdon's eyes. "Then
you do care for her?"

"Immensely. Never, I think, so much as now. That sounds of a grossness,
doesn't it?" the young man laughed. "But your announcement really lights
up the mind."

His friend for a moment almost glowed with his pleasure. "The sum I've
fixed upon would be, I may mention, substantial, and I should of course
be prepared with a clear statement--a very definite pledge--of my
intentions."

"So much the better! Only"--Vanderbank suddenly pulled himself up--"to
get it she MUST marry?"

"It's not in my interest to allow you to suppose she needn't, and it's
only because of my intensely wanting her marriage that I've spoken to
you."

"And on the ground also with it"--Vanderbank so far concurred--"of your
quite taking for granted my only having to put myself forward?"

If his friend seemed to cast about it proved but to be for the fullest
expression. Nothing in fact could have been more charged than the quiet
way in which he presently said: "My dear boy, I back you."

Vanderbank clearly was touched by it. "How extraordinarily kind you are
to me!" Mr. Longdon's silence appeared to reply that he was willing to
let it go for that, and the young man next went on: "What it comes to
then--as you put it--is that it's a way for me to add something handsome
to my income."

Mr. Longdon sat for a little with his eyes attached to the green field
of the bi