“Know you’d come bang up to meet me?” Vanderbank laughed. “Jolly at any rate, thanks to my mistake, to have in this way a quiet moment with you. You came on ahead of your mother?” “Oh no--I’m staying here.” “Oh!” said Vanderbank. “Mr. Longdon came up with me--I came here, Friday last, straight.” “You parted at the door?” he asked with marked gaiety. She thought a moment--she was more serious. “Yes--but only for a day or two. He’s coming tonight.” “Good. How delightful!” “He’ll be glad to see you,” Nanda said, looking at the flowers. “Awfully kind of him when I’ve been such a brute.” “How--a brute?” “Well, I mean not writing--nor going back.” “Oh I see,” Nanda simply returned. It was a simplicity that, clearly enough, made her friend a little awkward. “Has he--a--minded? Hut he can’t have complained!” he quickly added. “Oh he never complains.” “No, no--it isn’t in him. But it’s just that,” said Vanderbank, “that makes one feel so base. I’ve been ferociously busy.” “He knows that--he likes it,” Nanda returned. “He delights in your work. And I’ve done what I can for him.” “Ah,” said her companion, “you’ve evidently brought him round. I mean to this lady.” “To Tishy? Oh of course I can’t leave her--with nobody.” “No”--Vanderbank became jocose again--“that’s a London necessity. You can’t leave anybody with nobody--exposed to everybody.” Mild as it was, however, Nanda missed the pleasantry. “Mr. Grendon’s not here.” “Where is he then?” “Yachting--but she doesn’t know.” “Then she and you are just doing this together?” “Well,” said Nanda, “she’s dreadfully frightened.” “Oh she mustn’t allow herself,” he returned, “to be too much carried away by it. But we’re to have your mother?” “Yes, and papa. It’s really for Mitchy and Aggie,” the girl went on--“before they go abroad.” “Ah then I see what you’ve come up for! Tishy and I aren’t in it. It’s all for Mitchy.” “If you mean there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for him you’re quite right. He has always been of a kindness to me--!” “That culminated in marrying your friend?” Vanderbank asked. “It was charming certainly, and I don’t mean to diminish the merit of it. But Aggie herself, I gather, is of a charm now--!” “Isn’t she?”--Nanda was eager. “Hasn’t she come out?” “With a bound--into the arena. But when a young person’s out with Mitchy--!” “Oh you mustn’t say anything against that. I’ve been out with him myself.” “Ah but my dear child--!” Van frankly argued. It was not, however, a thing to notice. “I knew it would be just so. It always is when they’ve been like that.” “Do you mean as she apparently WAS? But doesn’t it make one wonder a little IF she was?” “Oh she was--I know she was. And we’re also to have Harold,” Nanda continued--“another of Mitchy’s beneficiaries. It WOULD be a banquet, wouldn’t it? if we were to have them all.”