Mrs. Brookenham’s face covered him for an instant as no painted Madonna’s had ever covered the little charge at the breast beneath it. “And the finest thing of all in you is your beautiful, beautiful pride! You’re prouder than all of us put together.” She checked a motion that he had apparently meant as a protest--she went on with her muffled wisdom. “There isn’t a man but YOU whom Petherton wouldn’t have made vulgar. He isn’t vulgar himself--at least not exceptionally; but he’s just one of those people, a class one knows well, who are so fearfully, in this country, the cause of it in others. For all I know he’s the cause of it in me--the cause of it even in poor Edward. For I’m vulgar, Mitchy dear--very often; and the marvel of you is that you never are.” “Thank you for everything. Thank you above all for ‘marvel’!” Mitchy grinned. “Oh I know what I say!”--she didn’t in the least blush. “I’ll tell you something,” she pursued with the same gravity, “if you’ll promise to tell no one on earth. If you’re proud I’m not. There! It’s most extraordinary and I try to conceal it even to myself; but there’s no doubt whatever about it--I’m not proud pour deux sous. And some day, on some awful occasion, I shall show it. So--I notify you. Shall you love me still?” “To the bitter end,” Mitchy loyally responded. “For how CAN, how need, a woman be ‘proud’ who’s so preternaturally clever? Pride’s only for use when wit breaks down--it’s the train the cyclist takes when his tire’s deflated. When that happens to YOUR tire, Mrs. Brook, you’ll let me know. And you do make me wonder just now,” he confessed, “why you’re taking such particular precautions and throwing out such a cloud of skirmishers. If you want to shoot me dead a single bullet will do.” He faltered but an instant before completing his sense. “Where you really want to come out is at the fact that Nanda loathes me and that I might as well give up asking for her.” “Are you quite serious?” his companion after a moment resumed. “Do you really and truly like her, Mitchy?” “I like her as much as I dare to--as much as a man can like a girl when from the very first of his seeing her and judging her he has also seen, and seen with all the reasons, that there’s no chance for him whatever. Of course, with all that, he has done his best not to let himself go. But there are moments,” Mr. Mitchett ruefully added, “when it would relieve him awfully to feel free for a good spin.” “I think you exaggerate,” his hostess replied, “the difficulties in your way. What do you mean by all the ‘reasons’?” “Why one of them I’ve already mentioned. I make her flesh creep.” “My own Mitchy!” Mrs. Brookenham protestingly moaned. “The other is that--very naturally--she’s in love.” “With whom under the sun?” Mrs. Brookenham had, with her startled stare, met his eyes long enough to have taken something from him before he next spoke. “You really have never suspected? With whom conceivably but old Van?”