talk--he HAS it. But of course I don't mean I don't know"--and as
with the effect of his nervous sociability he shifted his position. "I
perfectly see that you're NOT afraid. I perfectly know what you have in
your head. I should never in the least dream of accusing you--as far as
HE is concerned--of the least disposition to flirt; any more indeed,"
Vanderbank pleasantly pursued, "than even of any general tendency of
that sort. No, my dear Nanda"--he kindly kept it up--"I WILL say for
you that, though a girl, thank heaven, and awfully MUCH a girl, you're
really not on the whole more of a flirt than a respectable social ideal
prescribes."

"Thank you most tremendously," his companion quietly replied.

Something in the tone of it made him laugh out, and the particular sound
went well with all the rest, with the August day and the charming spot
and the young man's lounging figure and Nanda's own little hovering
hospitality. "Of course I strike you as patronising you with unconscious
sublimity. Well, that's all right, for what's the most natural thing to
do in these conditions but the most luxurious? Won't Mitchy be wonderful
for feeling and enjoying them? I assure you I'm delighted he's coming."
Then in a different tone a moment later, "Do you expect to be here
long?" he asked.

It took Nanda some time to say. "As long as Mr. Longdon will keep me, I
suppose--if that doesn't sound very horrible."

"Oh he'll keep you! Only won't he himself," Vanderbank went on, "be
coming up to town in the course of the autumn?"

"Well, in that case I'd perfectly stay here without him."

"And leave him in London without YOU? Ah that's not what we want:
he wouldn't be at all the same thing without you. Least of all for
himself!" Vanderbank declared.

Nanda again thought. "Yes, that's what makes him funny, I suppose--his
curious infatuation. I set him off--what do you call it?--show him
off: by his going round and round me as the acrobat on the horse in
the circus goes round the clown. He has said a great deal to me of your
mother," she irrelevantly added.

"Ok everything that's kind of course, or you wouldn't mention it."

"That's what I mean," said Nanda.

"I see, I see--most charming of him." Vanderbank kept his high head
thrown back as for the view, with a bright equal general interest, of
everything that was before them, whether talked of or seen. "Who do you
think I yesterday had a letter from? An extraordinary funny one from