“So that Edward can sometimes come down with his old gun? Good then too--if it isn’t, as he takes you by the way, to shoot YOU. You’ve got it all shipshape and arranged, in other words, and have only, if the fancy does move you, to clear out. You clear out--you make all sorts of room. It IS interesting,” Mitchy exclaimed, “arriving thus with you at the depths! I look all round and see every one squared and every one but one or two suited. Why then reflexion and delay?” “You don’t, dear Mr. Mitchy,” Nanda took her time to return, “know nearly as much as you think.” “But isn’t my question absolutely a confession of ignorance and a renunciation of thought? I put myself from this moment forth with you,” Mitchy declared, “on the footing of knowing nothing whatever and of receiving literally from your hands all information and all life. Let my continued attitude of dependence, my dear Nanda, show it. Any hesitation you may yet feel, you imply, proceeds from a sense of duties in London not to be lightly renounced? Oh,” he thoughtfully said, “I do at least know you HAVE them.” She watched him with the same mildness while he vaguely circled about. “You’re wild, you’re wild,” she insisted. “But it doesn’t in the least matter. I shan’t abandon you.” He stopped short. “Ah that’s what I wanted from you in so many clear-cut golden words--though I won’t in the least of course pretend that I’ve felt I literally need it. I don’t literally need the big turquoise in my neck-tie; which incidentally means, by the way, that if you should admire it you’re quite welcome to it. Such words--that’s my point--are like such jewels: the pride, you see, of one’s heart. They’re mere vanity, but they help along. You’ve got of course always poor Tishy,” he continued. “Will you leave it all to ME?” Nanda said as if she had not heard him. “And then you’ve got poor Carrie,” he went on, “though HER of course you rather divide with your mother.” “Will you leave it all to ME?” the girl repeated. “To say nothing of poor Cashmore,” he pursued, “whom you take ALL, I believe, yourself?” “Will you leave it all to ME?” she once more repeated. This time he pulled up, suddenly and expressively wondering. “Are you going to do anything about it at present?--I mean with our friend?” She appeared to have a scruple of saying, but at last she produced it. “Yes--he doesn’t mind now.” Mitchy again laughed out. “You ARE, as a family--!” But he had already checked himself. “Mr. Longdon will at any rate, you imply, be somehow interested--” “In MY interests? Of course--since he has gone so far. You expressed surprise at my wanting to wait and think; but how can I not wait and not think when so much depends on the question--now so definite--of how much further he WILL go?” “I see,” said Mitchy, profoundly impressed. “And how much does that depend on?” She had to reflect. “On how much further I, for my part, MUST!”