“Oh yes--ALL.” Mr. Longdon spoke very simply, with the consequence this time, on the part of his companions, of a silence of some minutes, which he himself had at last to break. “Mr. Grendon doesn’t like her.” The addition of these words apparently made the difference--as if they constituted a fresh link with the irresistible comedy of things. That he was unexpectedly diverting was, however, no check to Mr. Longdon’s delivering his full thought. “Very horrid of two sisters to be both, in their marriages, so wretched.” “Ah but Tishy, I maintain,” Mrs. Brook returned, “ISN’T wretched at all. If I were satisfied that she’s really so I’d never let Nanda come to her.” “That’s the most extraordinary doctrine, love,” the Duchess interposed. “When you’re satisfied a woman’s ‘really’ poor you never give her a crust?” “Do you call Nanda a crust, Duchess?” Vanderbank amusedly asked. “She’s all at any rate, apparently, just now, that poor Tishy has to live on.” “You’re severe then,” the young man said, “on our dinner of to-night.” “Oh Jane,” Mrs. Brook declared, “is never severe: she’s only uncontrollably witty. It’s only Tishy moreover who gives out that her husband doesn’t like her. HE, poor man, doesn’t say anything of the sort.” “Yes, but, after all, you know”--Vanderbank just put it to her--“where the deuce, all the while, IS he?” “Heaven forbid,” the Duchess remarked, “that we should too rashly ascertain.” “There it is--exactly,” Mr. Longdon subjoined. He had once more his success of hilarity, though not indeed to the injury of the Duchess’s next word. “It’s Nanda, you know, who speaks, and loud enough, for Harry Grendon’s dislikes.” “That’s easy for her,” Mrs. Brook declared, “when she herself isn’t one of them.” “She isn’t surely one of anybody’s,” Mr. Longdon gravely observed. Mrs. Brook gazed across at him. “You ARE too dear! But I’ve none the less a crow to pick with you.” Mr. Longdon returned her look, but returned it somehow to Van. “You frighten me, you know, out of my wits.” “_I_ do?” said Vanderbank. Mr. Longdon just hesitated. “Yes.” “It must be the sacred terror,” Mrs. Brook suggested to Van, “that Mitchy so often speaks of. I’M not trying with you,” she went on to Mr. Longdon, “for anything of that kind, but only for the short half-hour in private that I think you won’t for the world grant me. Nothing will induce you to find yourself alone with me.” “Why what on earth,” Vanderbank asked, “do you suspect him of supposing you want to do?” “Oh it isn’t THAT,” Mrs. Brook sadly said. “It isn’t what?” laughed the Duchess. “That he fears I may want in any way to--what do you call it?--make up to him.” She spoke as if she only wished it had been. “He has a deeper thought.” “Well then what in goodness is it?” the Duchess pressed.