u--!"

"Do you mean the amount he'll settle?"

"You have it in your power," said Mitchy, "to make it anything you
like."

"And is he then--so bloated?"

Mitchy was on his feet in the apartment in which their host had left
them, and he had at first for this question but an expressive motion of
the shoulders in respect to everything in the room. "See, judge, guess,
feel!"

But it was as if Vanderbank, before the fire, consciously controlled his
own attention. "Oh I don't care a hang!"

This passage took place in the library and as a consequence of their
having confessed, as their friend faced them with his bedroom light,
that a brief discreet vigil and a box of cigars would fix better than
anything else the fine impression of the day. Mitchy might at that
moment, on the evidence of the eyes Mr. Longdon turned to them and of
which his innocent candle-flame betrayed the secret, have found matter
for a measure of the almost extreme allowances he wanted them to want of
him. They had only to see that the greater window was fast and to turn
out the library lamp. It might really have amused them to stand a moment
at the open door that, apart from this, was to testify to his conception
of those who were not, in the smaller hours, as HE was. He had in fact
by his retreat--and but too sensibly--left them there with a deal of
midnight company. If one of these presences was the mystery he had
himself mixed the manner of our young men showed a due expectation of
the others. Mitchy, on hearing how little Vanderbank "cared," only kept
up a while longer that observant revolution in which he had spent much
of his day, to which any fresh sense of any exhibition always promptly
committed him, and which, had it not been controlled by infinite tact,
might have affected the nerves of those in whom enjoyment was less
rotary. He was silent long enough to suggest his fearing that almost
anything he might say would appear too allusive; then at last once more
he took his risk. "Awfully jolly old place!"

"It is indeed," Van only said; but his posture in the large chair he
had pushed toward the open window was of itself almost an opinion.
The August night was hot and the air that came in charged and sweet.
Vanderbank smoked with his face to the dusky garden and the dim stars;
at the end of a few moments more of which he glanced round. "Don't
you think it rather stuffy with that big lamp? As those candles on the
chimney are going we might pu