“Why, for the reason you just now mentioned--that his interest in me is so uncontrollable.”
“Of the same general order?” Vanderbank broke in. “Not in the least.” He seemed to look for a way to express the distinction--which suddenly occurred to him. “He wasn’t in love with Mitchy’s mother.”
“No”--Nanda turned it over. “Mitchy’s mother, it appears, was awful. Mr. Cashmore knew her.”
Vanderbank’s smoke-puffs were profuse and his pauses frequent. “Awful to Mr. Cashmore? I’m glad to hear it--he must have deserved it. But I believe in her all the same. Mitchy’s often awful himself,” the young man rambled on. “Just so I believe in HIM.”
“So do I,” said Nanda--“and that’s why I asked him.”
“YOU asked him, my dear child? Have you the inviting?”
The eyes he turned on her seemed really to try if she jested or were serious. “So you arranged for me too?”
She turned over again a few leaves of his book and, closing it with something of a clap, transferred it to the bench beside him--a movement in which, as if through a drop into thought, he rendered her no assistance. “What I mean is that I proposed it to Mr. Longdon, I suggested he should be asked. I’ve a reason for seeing him--I want to talk to him. And do you know,” the girl went on, “what Mr. Longdon said?”
“He asked if you wouldn’t perhaps dislike his being here with you.”
Vanderbank, throwing back his head, laughed, smoked, jogged his foot more than ever. “Awfully nice. Dear old Mitch! How little afraid of him you are!”
“Yes, of the tremendous pull he really has. It’s all very well to talk--he HAS it. But of course I don’t mean I don’t know”--and as with the effect of his nervous sociability he shifted his position. “I perfectly see that you’re NOT afraid. I perfectly know what you have in your head. I should never in the least dream of accusing you--as far as HE is concerned--of the least disposition to flirt; any more indeed,” Vanderbank pleasantly pursued, “than even of any general tendency of that sort. No, my dear Nanda”--he kindly kept it up--“I WILL say for you that, though a girl, thank heaven, and awfully MUCH a girl, you’re really not on the whole more of a flirt than a respectable social ideal prescribes.”
“Thank you most tremendously,” his companion quietly replied.