The Awkward Age

e invitation she had obeyed, she advanced the next moment as if either of the gentlemen before her would answer as well. "How do you do, Mr. Mitchy?

he scene might have fancied him a trifle put off by the girl's familiarity, or even, as by a singular effect of her self-possession, stricken into deeper diffidence. This self-possession, however, took on her own part no account of any awkwardness: it seemed the greater from the fact that she

is way alone?" Then while the girl's face met his own with the clear confession of it: "Isn't she too splendid for anything?" he asked with immense enjoyment. "What do you suppose is her idea?" Nanda's

e same coldness of wonder. All expression had for the minute been arrested in Mr. Longdon, but he at last began to show that it h

t detracted from her air of amusing herself. "Mother has wanted me awfully to see you. She told me to give you her

a bicycle?" M

oke without a gleam. "Mother

alking!" The ingenious observer just now suggested might even have detected i

e her attention all to the place, looking at the books, pictures and other significant objects, and especially at the small table set out for tea, to which the servant who had admitted her now returned with a steaming kettle. "Isn't it charming here? Will there be any one else? Wh

tchy with solicitude, yet began to show in a countenance less blank a return of his sense of relations. It was as if some

heir absent entertainer gained a point from his appearance at the moment in

-be happy! Of course you've made acquaintance all-except that Mitchy's so modest! Tea, tea!"-and he bustled to the table, where the next minute he appeared rather helpless. "Nanda, you blessed child, do YOU mind making it? How jolly of you!-are you all right?" He seemed, with this, for the first time, to be aware of somebody's absence. "Your mother isn't coming? She let you come alone? How jolly of her!" Pulling off her gloves Nanda had come immediately to his assistance; on which, quitting the table an

e said from behind her table. "M

had declined to be laid low, greeted the simple remark with upro

so young. Tishy never lets me touch hers either; so we had to make up for lost time. That's what mother said"-she followed up her story, and her young distinctness had clearly something to do with a certain pale concentration in Mr. Longdon's face. "Mother isn't ill, but she told me already yesterday she wouldn't come. She said i

arry to their friend. "When did your mother ever spoil anything? I told her Mr. Longdon wante

see her. Mr. Mitchy, sugar?-isn't that the way to say it? Three lumps? You're like me, only that I more often take five." Mitchy had dashed forward for his te

contact, a strange sense that his visitor was so agitated as to be trembling in every limb. It brought to his own lips a kind of ejaculation-"I SAY!" But even as he spoke Mr. Longdon's face, still white, but with a smile that was not all pain, seemed to supplicate him not to notice; and he was not a man to require m

e has been such a row mad

the feeling there

awful, my knowing T

ack on his sofa and attending in a manner to his tea. It might have been with the notion of showing himsel

to Mitchy, and then back again from one of the

d uncertain, but Vanderbank spoke first. "I

e again, with his cup, he addressed his hilarity to Mr. Longdon. "I t

rtain vagueness, the attitude of am

ons. This young lady has a tremendous friend

"it's all very simple. Don't belie

uld give up a friend." She stopped short with the sense apparent that she was saying more than she meant, though, strangely, as if it had been an effect of her type and of her voice, there was neither pertness nor passion in the profession she had just made. Curiously wanting as she seemed both in timidity

ction of something else-was to make that personage, in a manner that held the others watching him in slight suspense, suddenly spring to his feet again, put down his teacup carefully on a table near and then without a wo

" Nanda asked. "Has

but you're right-of a charm, a distinction

d. "But it's not the sort of thing that's to be had for the

m and, with the natural greed of the inventor, won't let us

e's so much too good for

just what I've been telling him that YOU are!

nda broke in. She had finished her tea-making and leaned bac

ow? IN our set. You're in Mrs. Grendon's. I know what you're going to say-that she hasn't got any set, that she's just a loose little white flowe

her cold kindness. "Wha

too good for you. No one, remember, will take that for your excuse when the world s

an eddy. "Martyr!" she gently exclaimed. But there was no smile with it. She turned to Vanderbank, who, during the previous minute, h

, you wretch?" Mitchy went on as th

, looked a trifle absently from one of them to the other

at the question. "Ho

ows al

ame radiant to interpret. "He kno

one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen." He looked at her

ed; "the victim done for by

ed her other friend with clear curi

out to speak,

m HIM!"-and, returning to thei

ach other. "But isn't it rat

slowly came away from the table.

r his putting before you probably, on t

chy, that I like YOU." She spoke w

msiness of my flattery." She had turned away from him, kindly enough, as if time for his talk in the air were always to

mention her as a way of alluding to som

st have said to you: 'Be nice to him, to show him it isn't quite so bad as that!' So you

volume of which she turned the leaves. "Don't 'adore' a g

ied. "You bring t

ving him, however, no chance to take her up on this, she made a quick transition. "M

But is this the way fo

k to HER. She wants me no longer to keep seeing on

t, but he presently broke into a laugh. "What

ain the covers of her folio. There was deliberation in her movements. "I shall always be glad when you're there. But where do

ble things about you. The impression's too deep. Let them lo

e told me s

er that sound. It's her weakness," he continued, "and perhaps even one may say her danger. All the more reason you

eplied. "I HAVE helped her. Tishy's sure I have. That's what Tishy wants me

touching to other eyes; but Nanda's were not heedful of it. "Oh," he returned after

pair as if struck by their intimacy. "How you ARE keeping it up!" Then to Nanda persuasively: "Do you

. "What will he do to

ou what I mea

ho can tell me sometimes what you mea

hy asked of his host whi

im to a seat again and was casting about for cig

ight. "Will she understand? She has everything in

him, lighted for hi

se of

she's s

a little. "S

across to give the door a light push that all but closed it. "It's rather odd," he remark