“Hasn’t the same character as her interest in ME?” Vanderbank had taken him up responsively, but after speaking looked about for a match and lighted a new cigarette. “I’m sure you understand,” he broke out, “what an extreme effort it is to me to talk of such things!” “Yes, yes. But it’s just effort only? It gives you no pleasure? I mean the fact of her condition,” Mr. Longdon explained. Vanderbank had really to think a little. “However much it might give me I should probably not be a fellow to gush. I’m a self-conscious stick of a Briton.” “But even a stick of a Briton--!” Mr. Longdon faltered and hovered. “I’ve gushed in short to YOU.” “About Lady Julia?” the young man frankly asked. “Is gushing what you call what you’ve done?” “Say then we’re sticks of Britons. You’re not in any degree at all in love?” There fell between them, before Vanderbank replied, another pause, of which he took advantage to move once more round the table. Mr. Longdon meanwhile had mounted to the high bench and sat there as if the judge were now in his proper place. At last his companion spoke. “What you’re coming to is of course that you’ve conceived a desire.” “That’s it--strange as it may seem. But believe me, it has not been precipitate. I’ve watched you both.” “Oh I knew you were watching HER,” said Vanderbank. “To such a tune that I’ve made up my mind. I want her so to marry--!” But on the odd little quaver of longing with which he brought it out the elder man fairly hung. “Well?” said Vanderbank. “Well, so that on the day she does she’ll come into the interest of a considerable sum of money--already very decently invested--that I’ve determined to settle on her.” Vanderbank’s instant admiration flushed across the room. “How awfully jolly of you--how beautiful!” “Oh there’s a way to show practically your appreciation of it.” But Vanderbank, for enthusiasm, scarcely heard him. “I can’t tell you how admirable I think you.” Then eagerly, “Does Nanda know it?” he demanded. Mr. Longdon, after a wait, spoke with comparative dryness. “My idea has been that for the present you alone shall.” Vanderbank took it in. “No other man?” His companion looked still graver. “I need scarcely say that I depend on you to keep the fact to yourself.” “Absolutely then and utterly. But that won’t prevent what I think of it. Nothing for a long time has given me such joy.” Shining and sincere, he had held for a minute Mr. Longdon’s eyes. “Then you do care for her?” “Immensely. Never, I think, so much as now. That sounds of a grossness, doesn’t it?” the young man laughed. “But your announcement really lights up the mind.” His friend for a moment almost glowed with his pleasure. “The sum I’ve fixed upon would be, I may mention, substantial, and I should of course be prepared with a clear statement--a very definite pledge--of my intentions.” “So much the better! Only”--Vanderbank suddenly pulled himself up--“to get it she MUST marry?”