She faltered still a little. “I do say the most hideous things. But we HAVE said worse, haven’t we? Up to now, I mean, he hasn’t given her anything. Unless indeed,” she mused, “she may have had something without telling me.” Vanderbank went much straighter. “What sort of thing have you in mind? Are you thinking of money?” “Yes. Isn’t it awful?” “That you should think of it?” “That I should talk this way.” Her friend was apparently not prepared with an assent, and she quickly enough pursued: “If he HAD given her any it would come out somehow in her expenditure. She has tremendous liberty and is very secretive, but still it would come out.” “He wouldn’t give her any without letting you know. Nor would she, without doing so,” Vanderbank added, “take it.” “Ah,” Mrs. Brook quietly said, “she hates me enough for anything.” “That’s only your romantic theory.” Once more she appeared not to hear him; she gave the discussion another turn. “Has he given YOU anything?” Her visitor smiled. “Not so much as a cigarette. I’ve always my pockets full of them, and HE never: so he only takes mine. Oh Mrs. Brook,” he continued, “with me too--though I’ve also tremendous liberty!--it would come out.” “I think you’d let me know,” she returned. “Yes, I’d let you know.” Silence, upon this, fell between them a little; which she was the first to break. “She has gone with him this afternoon--by solemn appointment--to the South Kensington Museum.” There was something in Mrs. Brook’s dolorous drop that yet presented the news as a portent so great that he was moved again to mirth. “Ah that’s where she is? Then I confess she has scored. He has never taken ME to the South Kensington Museum.” “You were asking what we’re going to do,” she went on. “What I meant was--about Baireuth--that the question for Nanda’s simplified. He has pressed her so to pay him a visit.” Vanderbank’s assent was marked. “I see: so that if you do go abroad she’ll be provided for by that engagement.” “And by lots of other invitations.” These were such things as, for the most part, the young man could turn over. “Do you mean you’d let her go alone--?” “To wherever she’s asked?” said Mrs. Brook. “Why not? Don’t talk like the Duchess.” Vanderbank seemed for a moment to try not to. “Couldn’t Mr. Longdon take her? Why not?” His friend looked really struck with it. “That WOULD be working him. But to a beautiful end!” she meditated. “The only thing would be to get him also asked.” “Ah but there you are, don’t you see? Fancy ‘getting’ Mr. Longdon anything or anywhere whatever! Don’t you feel,” Vanderbank threw out, “how the impossibility of exerting that sort of patronage for him immediately places him?”