Mitchy had seated himself, but Vanderbank remained erect and became perhaps even slightly stiff. He was not angry--no member of the inner circle at Buckingham Crescent was ever angry--but he looked grave and rather troubled. “Even if it IS decidedly fine”--he addressed his hostess straight--“I can’t make out quite why you’re doing THIS--I mean immediately making it known.” “Ah but what do we keep from Mitchy?” Mrs. Brook asked. “What CAN you keep? It comes to the same thing,” Mitchy said. “Besides, here we are together, share and share alike--one beautiful intelligence. Mr. Longdon’s ‘somebody’ is of course Van. Don’t try to treat me as an outsider.” Vanderbank looked a little foolishly, though it was but the shade of a shade, from one of them to the other. “I think I’ve been rather an ass!” “What then by the terms of our friendship--just as Mitchy says--can he and I have a better right to know and to feel with you about? You’ll want, Mitchy, won’t you?” Mrs. Brook went on, “to hear all about THAT?” “Oh I only mean,” Vanderbank explained, “in having just now blurted my tale out to you. However, I of course do know,” he pursued to Mitchy, “that whatever’s really between us will remain between us. Let me then tell you myself exactly what’s the matter.” The length of his pause after these words showed at last that he had stopped short; on which his companions, as they waited, exchanged a sympathetic look. They waited another minute, and then he dropped into a chair where, leaning forward, his elbows on the arms and his gaze attached to the carpet, he drew out the silence. Finally he looked at Mrs. Brook. “YOU make it clear.” The appeal called up for some reason her most infantine manner. “I don’t think I CAN, dear Van--really CLEAR. You know however yourself,” she continued to Mitchy, “enough by this time about Mr. Longdon and mamma.” “Oh rather!” Mitchy laughed. “And about mamma and Nanda.” “Oh perfectly: the way Nanda reminds him, and the ‘beautiful loyalty’ that has made him take such a fancy to her. But I’ve already embraced the facts--you needn’t dot any i’s.” With another glance at his fellow visitor Mitchy jumped up and stood there florid. “He has offered you money to marry her.” He said this to Vanderbank as if it were the most natural thing in the world. “Oh NO” Mrs. Brook interposed with promptitude: “he has simply let him know before any one else that the money’s there FOR Nanda, and that therefore--!” “First come first served?” Mitchy had already taken her up. “I see, I see. Then to make her sure of the money,” he put to Vanderbank, “you MUST marry her?” “If it depends upon that she’ll never get it,” Mrs. Brook returned. “Dear Van will think conscientiously a lot about it, but he won’t do it.” “Won’t you, Van, really?” Mitchy asked from the hearth-rug.