The Awkward Age

utor, watching him, waited for his response. That gentleman, as this response for a minute hung fire, took his turn at sitting down, and then Vanderbank stopped before him with a face in which som

g questions and we must soone

once more took out his watch. "It wants five minu

n and pressed upon him another cigarette. His resistance rang hollow-it was clearly, he judged, such an occasion for sacrifices.

strike up. "I told you everything at Mrs. Brooken

to me on this, after dinner, and gave me a pleasure still greater. But that only takes us part of the way." Mr. Longdon said nothing, but there was something appreciative in his conscious lapses; they were a tribute to his young friend's frequent felicity. This personage indeed appeared more and more to take them for that-which was not

things that all happened at once helped me out. My father died-I came into the little place in Suffolk. My sister, my only one, who had married and was older than I, lost within a year or two both her husband and her little boy. I offer

read into it deeply enough all the unsaid. He filled out another of his friend's gaps. "And here

you mean

u that we shall make your life a burden to y

hat as yet-with my race practically run-I know nothing about. I was no success as a young

ed. Then he added: "What people do you mean?" A

e it so bad," he continued, "was that they all really liked me. Your mother, I

was surprised. "You mean

dn't take her long. It was five

ery delicately made. "

know she did," Va

abruptly, Mr. Longdon pulled himse

derbank. "But wasn't t

orting him, Mr. Longdon looked straight

nion smiled. "My m

. I'm not speaking of that ti

ou're speaking of the firs

d call them rather the last. Six mo

at was about my seventh year." He called things back and pi

me at all events, then and afterwards. T

laughed. "The charm was

vered at all-hadn't, if that's what you mean, got over my misery and my melancholy. She knew

biguity. "Oh you mean you could talk about

deep memories to attest which he had survived alone; then he sighed out as if the taste of it all came back to him with a faint sweetness: "I think they must both have been good to me. At the Malvern time, the particular time I just mentioned to you, Lady Julia was already married, and during those first years she had been whirled out of my ken. Then her own life took a quieter turn; we met again; I went for a good while often to her house. I think she rather liked the state to which she had reduced me, though she didn't, you know, in the least presume on it. Th

hy-!" Vanderbank replied. "

for a moment, on this, fixed his companion with eyes that betrayed one of the restless litt

elieve-meant for ever so much better ones. Those are just the sort I like to be supposed to have a real

made the point with innocent sha

consciousness and the absence of a rag of illusion, I shall appear to say I'm wholly different from the world I live in and to that extent present myself as superi

ever: that's what's the matter w

stic and cynical, without the soft human spot. I think you flatter us even while you attempt to warn; but what's extremely interesting at all events is that, as I gather, we made on you this evening, in a particular way, a collective impression-something

effect at once of feeling a finger on his fault and of admiring his companion'

an its bei

ut looked grave now. "Do

ssure you there's at this moment

no talker myself. I'm old-fashioned and narrow and ignorant.

us?" Before his guest's puzzled, finally almost pained face, such an air of appreciating so much candour, yet of looking askance at so much freedom, he could only try to smooth the way and light the subject. "You see we don't in the least know where we are. We're lost-and you find us." Mr. Longdon, as he spok

h his clear eyes so untouched

ously. I wan

gdon was difficult to tell. "We

time SOME change is natural, isn't it? But so differen

le somehow made the face graver. "I thi

OND. LIT

tment, though rather of the afflicted than of the irritated sort, in the question that, slowly advancing, she lau

e had evidently roused him from sleep, and it took him a couple of minutes-during which, without again looking at him, she directly approache

to say you'

solemnity at the fire, and if it had been-as it was not-one of the annoyances she in general e

cretary, of which as she said these words Mrs. Brookenham took possession. Her air on observing them had promptly become that of having bee

ean to YO

ked at him. "What's the matter with you?

eyes. "Why it's just THE time, mummy. I did it on purpose. I can alwa

t, in Buckingham Crescent, commanded the prospect they had ramified rearward to enjoy; a medley of smoky brick and spotty stucco, of other undressed backs, of glass invidiously opaque, of roofs and chimney-pots and stables unnaturally near-one of the private pictures that in London, in select situations, run up, as the phrase is, the rent. There was no ind

for me," he asked,

er-and she stood again before the fire and sounded his strange little fa

ror, m

ent he got up and came over to kiss her, on which she drew her cheek wearily aside

you call

licly ridiculous." She turned vaguely the pages

er-character of the insidious sort carried out in the acuteness, difficult to trace to a source, of his smooth fair face, where the lines were all curves and the expression all needles. He had the voice of a

" he insisted; "you should have locked it BEFORE, don't you know? It grinned at me there with all its charming brasses, and what was I to do? Darling mummy, I COULDN'T start-that was the truth. I thought I should find something-I had not

ring tone, all played together toward this effect by some trick that had never yet been exposed. It was at the same time remarkable that-at least in the bosom of her family-she rarely wore an appearance of gaiety less qualified than at the present juncture; she suggested for the most part the luxury, the novelty of woe, the excitement of strange sorrows and the

t on account of what you thought I might do that you took out the keys as soon as you

wn again with her heavy book. There was no anger, however, in her voice, and not even a harsh plaint; only a detached accepted d

thank you immensely for the charming way you take what I've done; it was because I had a conviction of that that I waited for you to know it. It was all very well to tell

to heaven you'd get out of the house," M

ore. But it will be going forth, you know, quite to seek my fortune. For do you re

her pretty pathos. "You mea

now you try to make me do things you wouldn't at all do yourself. At least I hope you

moment at the ceiling and then closed her eyes. "

do me. Don't you think your children good ENOUGH, mummy dear? At any rate it's as plain as possible that if you don't keep us at home you must keep us in other plac

terposed. But it was with the same remote melancholy that she

id she'd write, fixing a ti

f YOU

ean. Should one simply take it that one's wanted? I like to have these things FROM you, mother. I do, I b

m to the cornice. "If she hadn't wanted you she'd have written

ke to tuck us in and then sit up yourself! What do

on, an expression that would have served for an observer as a marked illustration of that disconnectedness of her parts which frequently was laughable even to the degree of contrib

he question demanded some answer really

e to the floor. "Will

ou. Only, if I SHOULD

d vagueness of her own had never been greater. "BE wanted, a

to whose bosom she was pressed. "You do, dearest," he laughed, "say such sweet things!" And with that h

d the room, but she spoke with utte

n't be at Brander." He stood with his hand on the kn

remarkable form of activity, and had given a transforming touch, on sofa and chairs, to three or four

I AM kic

that she considered it.

ght! And sh

little more a window

y!" And Harold

Do write-from Brander. It's the sort o

h you duck!" he cried. "And from

plied without wincing.

ades of familiarity a large high lady, the visitor he had announced, who rose in the doorway with the manner of a