“Who may be only the flashing meteor?” He sat and smiled at her. “I promise you then that your words have stayed me in my course. You’ve made me stand as still as Joshua made the sun.” With which he got straight up. “‘Young,’ you say she is?”--for as if to make up for it he all the more sociably continued. “It’s not like anything else. She’s youth. She’s MY youth--she WAS mine. And if you ever have a chance,” he wound up, “do put in for me that if she wants REALLY to know she’s booked for my old age. She’s clever enough, you know”--and Vanderbank, laughing, went over for his hat--“to understand what you tell her.” Nanda took this in with due attention; she was also now on her feet. “And then she’s so lovely.” “Awfully pretty!” “I don’t say it, as they say, you know,” the girl continued, “BECAUSE she’s mother, but I often think when we’re out that wherever she is--!” “There’s no one that all round really touches her?” Vanderbank took it up with zeal. “Oh so every one thinks, and in fact one’s appreciation of the charming things in that way so intensely her own can scarcely breathe on them all lightly enough. And then, hang it, she has perceptions--which are not things that run about the streets. She has surprises.” He almost broke down for vividness. “She has little ways.” “Well, I’m glad you do like her,” Nanda gravely replied. At this again he fairly faced her, his momentary silence making it still more direct. “I like, you know, about as well as I ever liked anything, this wonderful idea of yours of putting in a plea for her solitude and her youth. Don’t think I do it injustice if I say--which is saying much--that it’s quite as charming as it’s amusing. And now good-bye.” He had put out his hand, but Nanda hesitated. “You won’t wait for tea?” “My dear child, I can’t.” He seemed to feel, however, that something more must be said. “We shall meet again. But it’s getting on, isn’t it, toward the general scatter?” “Yes, and I hope that this year,” she answered, “you’ll have a good holiday.” “Oh we shall meet before that. I shall do what I can, but upon my word I feel, you know,” he laughed, “that such a tuning-up as YOU’VE given me will last me a long time. It’s like the high Alps.” Then with his hand out again he added: “Have you any plans yourself?” So many, it might have seemed, that she had no time to take for thinking of them. “I dare say I shall be away a good deal.” He candidly wondered. “With Mr. Longdon?” “Yes--with him most.” He had another pause. “Really for a long time?” “A long long one, I hope.” “Your mother’s willing again?” “Oh perfectly. And you see that’s why.” “Why?” She had said nothing more, and he failed to understand. “Why you mustn’t too much leave her alone. DON’T!” Nanda brought out. “I won’t. But,” he presently added, “there are one or two things.” “Well, what are they?” He produced in some seriousness the first. “Won’t she after all see the Mitchys?”