The Awkward Age

III

It was half-past five when Mitchy turned up; and her relapse had in the mean time known no arrest but the arrival of tea, which, however, she had left unnoticed. He expressed on entering the fear that he failed of exactitude, to which she replied by the assurance that he was on the contrary remarkably near it and by the mention of all the aid to patience she had drawn from the pleasure of half an hour with Mr. Van—an allusion that of course immediately provoked on Mitchy’s part the liveliest interest.

“He HAS risked it at last then? How tremendously exciting! And your mother?” he went on; after which, as she said nothing: “Did SHE see him, I mean, and is he perhaps with her now?”

“No; she won’t have come in—unless you asked.”

“I didn’t ask. I asked only for you.”

Nanda thought an instant. “But you’ll still sometimes come to see her, won’t you? I mean you won’t ever give her up?”

Mitchy at this laughed out. “My dear child, you’re an adorable family!”

She took it placidly enough. “That’s what Mr. Van said. He said I’m trying to make a career for her.”

“Did he?” Her visitor, though without prejudice to his amusement, appeared struck. “You must have got in with him rather deep.”

She again considered. “Well, I think I did rather. He was awfully beautiful and kind.”

“Oh,” Mitchy concurred, “trust him always for that!”

“He wrote me, on my note,” Nanda pursued, “a tremendously good answer.”

Mitchy was struck afresh. “Your note? What note?”

“To ask him to come. I wrote at the beginning of the week.”

“Oh—I see” Mitchy observed as if this were rather different. “He couldn’t then of course have done less than come.”

Yet his companion again thought. “I don’t know.”

“Oh come—I say: You do know,” Mitchy laughed. “I should like to see him—or you either!” There would have been for a continuous spectator of these episodes an odd resemblance between the manner and all the movements that had followed his entrance and those that had accompanied the installation of his predecessor. He laid his hat, as Vanderbank had done, in three places in succession and appeared to question scarcely less the safety, somewhere, of his umbrella and the grace of retaining in his hand his gloves. He postponed the final selection of a seat and he looked at the objects about him while he spoke of other matters. Quite in the same fashion indeed at last these objects impressed him. “How charming you’ve made your room and what a lot of nice things you’ve got!”

“That’s just what Mr. Van said too. He seemed immensely struck.”

But Mitchy hereupon once more had a drop to extravagance. “Can I do nothing then but repeat him? I came, you know, to be original.”

“It would be original for you,” Nanda promptly returned, “to be at all like him. But you won’t,” she went back, “not sometimes come for mother only? You’ll have plenty of chances.”

This he took up with more gravity. “What do you mean by chances? That you’re going away? That WILL add to the attraction!” he exclaimed as she kept silence.

“I shall have to wait,” she answered at last, “to tell you definitely what I’m to do. It’s all in the air—yet I think I shall know to-day. I’m to see Mr. Longdon.”

Mitchy wondered. “To-day?”

“He’s coming at half-past six.”

“And then you’ll know?”

“Well—HE will.”

“Mr. Longdon?”

“I meant Mr. Longdon,” she said after a moment.

Mitchy had his watch out. “Then shall I interfere?”

“There are quantities of time. You must have your tea. You see at any rate,” the girl continued, “what I mean by your chances.”

She had made him his tea, which he had taken. “You do squeeze us in!”

“Well, it’s an accident your coming together—except of course that you’re NOT together. I simply took the time that you each independently proposed. But it would have been all right even if you HAD met.

“That is, I mean,” she explained, “even if you and Mr. Longdon do. Mr. Van, I confess, I did want alone.”

Mitchy had been glaring at her over his tea. “You’re more and more remarkable!”

“Well then if I improve so give me your promise.”

Mitchy, as he partook of refreshment, kept up his thoughtful gaze. “I shall presently want some more, please. But do you mind my asking if Van knew—”

“That Mr. Longdon’s to come? Oh yes, I told him, and he left with me a message for him.”

“A message? How awfully interesting!”

Nanda thought. “It WILL be awfully—to Mr. Longdon.”

“Some more NOW, please,” said Mitchy while she took his cup. “And to Mr. Longdon only, eh? Is that a way of saying that it’s none of MY business?”

The fact of her attending—and with a happy show of particular care—to his immediate material want added somehow, as she replied, to her effect of sincerity. “Ah, Mr. Mitchy, the business of mine that has not by this time ever so naturally become a business of yours—well, I can’t think of any just now, and I wouldn’t, you know, if I could!”

“I can promise you then that there’s none of mine,” Mitchy declared, “that hasn’t made by the same token quite the same shift. Keep it well before you, please, that if ever a young woman had a grave lookout—!”

“What do you mean,” she interrupted, “by a grave lookout?”

“Well, the certainty of finding herself saddled for all time to come with the affairs of a gentleman whom she can never get rid of on the specious plea that he’s only her husband or her lover or her father or her son or her brother or her uncle or her cousin. There, as none of these characters, he just stands.”

“Yes,” Nanda kindly mused, “he’s simply her Mitchy.”

“Precisely. And a Mitchy, you see, is—what do you call it?—simply indissoluble. He’s moreover inordinately inquisitive. He goes to the length of wondering whether Van also learned that you were expecting ME.”

“Oh yes—I told him everything.”

Mitchy smiled. “Everything?”

“I told him—I told him,” she replied with impatience.

Mitchy hesitated. “And did he then leave me also a message?”