“Ah wait, wait!” Mrs. Brook put in. “She has a theory”--Vanderbank, from his chair, lighted it up for Mitchy, who hovered before them--“that your chance WILL come, later on, after I’ve given my measure.” “Oh but that’s exactly,” Mitchy was quick to respond, “what you’ll never do! You won’t give your measure the least little bit. You’ll walk in magnificent mystery ‘later on’ not a bit less than you do today; you’ll continue to have the benefit of everything that our imagination, perpetually engaged, often baffled and never fatigued, will continue to bedeck you with. Nanda, in the same way, to the end of all her time, will simply remain exquisite, or genuine, or generous--whatever we choose to call it. It may make a difference to us, who are comparatively vulgar, but what difference will it make to HER whether you do or you don’t decide for her? You can’t belong to her more, for herself, than you do already--and that’s precisely so much that there’s no room for any one else. Where therefore, without that room, do I come in?” “Nowhere, I see,” Vanderbank seemed obligingly to muse. Mrs. Brook had followed Mitchy with marked admiration, but she gave on this a glance at Van that was like the toss of a blossom from the same branch. “Oh then shall I just go on with you BOTH? That WILL be joy!” She had, however, the next thing, a sudden drop which shaded the picture. “You’re so divine, Mitchy, that how can you not in the long-run break ANY woman down?” It was not as if Mitchy was struck--it was only that he was courteous. “What do you call the long-run? Taking about till I’m eighty?” “Ah your genius is of a kind to which middle life will be particularly favourable. You’ll reap then somehow, one feels, everything you’ve sown.” Mitchy still accepted the prophecy only to control it. “Do you call eighty middle life? Why, my moral beauty, my dear woman--if that’s what you mean by my genius--is precisely my curse. What on earth--is left for a man just rotten with goodness? It renders necessary the kind of liking that renders unnecessary anything else.” “Now that IS cheap paradox!” Vanderbank patiently sighed. “You’re down for a fine.” It was with less of the patience perhaps that Mrs. Brook took this up. “Yes, on that we ARE stiff. Five pounds, please.” Mitchy drew out his pocket-book even though he explained. “What I mean is that I don’t give out the great thing.” With which he produced a crisp banknote. “DON’T you?” asked Vanderbank, who, having taken it from him to hand to Mrs. Brook, held it a moment, delicately, to accentuate the doubt. “The great thing’s the sacred terror. It’s you who give THAT out.” “Oh!”--and Vanderbank laid the money on the small stand at Mrs. Brook’s elbow. “Ain’t I right, Mrs. Brook?--doesn’t he, tremendously, and isn’t that more than anything else what does it?”