ly
said. "Of course, my dear man, I'm 'aware,' as you just now put it, of
everything, and I'm not indiscreet, am I, Mrs. Brook? in admitting for
you as well as for myself that there WAS an impossibility you and I used
sometimes to turn over together. Only--Lord bless us all!--it isn't as
if I hadn't long ago seen that there's nothing at all FOR me."

"Ah wait, wait!" Mrs. Brook put in. "She has a theory"--Vanderbank, from
his chair, lighted it up for Mitchy, who hovered before them--"that your
chance WILL come, later on, after I've given my measure."

"Oh but that's exactly," Mitchy was quick to respond, "what you'll never
do! You won't give your measure the least little bit. You'll walk in
magnificent mystery 'later on' not a bit less than you do today;
you'll continue to have the benefit of everything that our imagination,
perpetually engaged, often baffled and never fatigued, will continue
to bedeck you with. Nanda, in the same way, to the end of all her time,
will simply remain exquisite, or genuine, or generous--whatever we
choose to call it. It may make a difference to us, who are comparatively
vulgar, but what difference will it make to HER whether you do or you
don't decide for her? You can't belong to her more, for herself, than
you do already--and that's precisely so much that there's no room for
any one else. Where therefore, without that room, do I come in?"

"Nowhere, I see," Vanderbank seemed obligingly to muse.

Mrs. Brook had followed Mitchy with marked admiration, but she gave on
this a glance at Van that was like the toss of a blossom from the same
branch. "Oh then shall I just go on with you BOTH? That WILL be joy!"
She had, however, the next thing, a sudden drop which shaded the
picture. "You're so divine, Mitchy, that how can you not in the long-run
break ANY woman down?"

It was not as if Mitchy was struck--it was only that he was courteous.
"What do you call the long-run? Taking about till I'm eighty?"

"Ah your genius is of a kind to which middle life will be particularly
favourable. You'll reap then somehow, one feels, everything you've
sown."

Mitchy still accepted the prophecy only to control it. "Do you call
eighty middle life? Why, my moral beauty, my dear woman--if that's what
you mean by my genius--is precisely my curse. What on earth--is left for
a man just rotten with goodness? It renders necessary the kind of liking
that renders unnecessary anything else."

"Now that IS cheap p