“Oh,” said Nanda very simply, “it isn’t a ‘career’ exactly, is it--keeping hold of an old friend? but it may console a little, mayn’t it, for the absence of one? At all events I didn’t want not to have spoken before it’s too late. Of course I don’t know what’s the matter between you, or if anything’s really the matter at all. I don’t care at any rate WHAT is--it can’t be anything very bad. Make it up, make it up--forget it. I don’t pretend that’s a career for YOU any more than for her; but there it is. I know how I sound--most patronising and pushing; but nothing venture nothing have. You CAN’T know how much you are to her. You’re more to her, I verily believe, than any one EVER was. I hate to have the appearance of plotting anything about her behind her back; so I’ll just say it once for all. She said once, in speaking of it to a person who repeated it to me, that you had done more for her than any one, because it was you who had really brought her out. It WAS. You did. I saw it at the time myself. I was very small, but I COULD see it. You’ll say I must have been a most uncanny little wretch, and I dare say I was and am keeping now the pleasant promise. That doesn’t prevent one’s feeling that when a person has brought a person out--” “A person should take the consequences,” Vanderbank broke in, “and see a person through?” He could meet her now perfectly and proceeded admirably to do it. “There’s an immense deal in that, I admit--I admit. I’m bound to say I don’t know quite what I did--one does those things, no doubt, with a fine unconsciousness: I should have thought indeed it was the other way round. But I assure you I accept all consequences and all responsibilities. If you don’t know what’s the matter between us I’m sure _I_ don’t either. It can’t be much--we’ll look into it. I don’t mean you and I--YOU mustn’t be any more worried; but she and her so unwittingly faithless one. I HAVEN’T been as often, I know”--Van pleasantly kept his course. “But there’s a tide in the affairs of men--and of women too, and of girls and of every one. You know what I mean--you know it for yourself. The great thing is that--bless both your hearts!--one doesn’t, one simply CAN’T if one would, give your mother up. It’s absurd to talk about it. Nobody ever did such a thing in his life. There she is, like the moon or the Marble Arch. I don’t say, mind you,” he candidly explained, “that every one LIKES her equally: that’s another affair. But no one who ever HAS liked her can afford ever again for any long period to do without her. There are too many stupid people--there’s too much dull company. That, in London, is to be had by the ton; your mother’s intelligence, on the other hand, will always have its price. One can talk with her for a change. She’s fine, fine, fine. So, my dear child, be quiet. She’s a fixed star.” “Oh I know she is,” Nanda said. “It’s YOU--”