e basis."

Mrs. Brook got straight up. "'Proposed'? To HER?"

"No, I don't think he has said a word to Nanda--in fact I'm sure that,
very properly, he doesn't mean to. But he spoke to me on Sunday night
at Mertle--I had a big talk with him there alone, very late, in the
smoking-room." Mrs. Brook's stare was serious, and Vanderbank now went
on as if the sound of his voice helped him to meet it. "We had things
out very much and his kindness was extraordinary--he's the most
beautiful old boy that ever lived. I don't know, now that I come to
think of it, if I'm within my rights in telling you--and of course I
shall immediately let him know that I HAVE told you; but I feel I can't
arrive at any respectable sort of attitude in the matter without taking
you into my confidence. Which is really what I came here to-day to do,
though till this moment I've funked it."

It was either, as her friends chose to think it, an advantage or a
drawback of intercourse with Mrs. Brook that, her face being at any
moment charged with the woe of the world, it was unavoidable to remain
rather in the dark as to the effect there of particular strokes.
Something in Vanderbank's present study of the signs accordingly showed
he had had to learn to feel his way and had more or less mastered the
trick. That she had turned a little pale was really the one fresh
mark. "'Funked' it? Why in the world--?" His own colour deepened at her
accent, which was a sufficient light on his having been stupid. "Do you
mean you've declined the arrangement?"

He only, with a smile somewhat strained, continued for a moment to look
at her; clearly, however, at last feeling, and not much caring, that he
got in still deeper. "You're magnificent. You're magnificent."

Her lovely gaze widened out. "Comment donc? Where--why? You HAVE
declined her?" she went on. After which, as he replied only with a slow
head-shake that seemed to say it was not for the moment all so simple as
that, she had one of the inspirations to which she was constitutionally
subject. "Do you imagine I want you myself?"

"Dear Mrs. Brook, you're so admirable," he returned with gaiety, "that
if by any chance you did, upon my honour, I don't see how I should be
able not to say 'All right.'" But he spoke too more responsibly. "I was
shy of really bringing out to you what has happened to me, for a reason
that I've of course to look in the face. Whatever you want yourself, for
Nanda you want Mitchy."

"I