e took him up on it--"as not to look so very
well for you?" She held him an instant as with the fine intelligence
of his meaning in this, and then, though not with sharpness, broke out:
"Why are you trying to make out that you're nasty and stingy? Why do you
misrepresent--?"

"My natural generosity? I don't misrepresent anything, but I take, I
think, rather markedly good care of money." She had remained in her
place and he was before her on the grass, his hands in his pockets and
his manner perhaps a little awkward. "The way you young things talk of
it!"

"Harold talks of it--but I don't think _I_ do. I'm not a bit
expensive--ask mother, or even ask father. I do with awfully little--for
clothes and things, and I could easily do with still less. Harold's a
born consumer, as Mitchy says; he says also he's one of those people who
will never really want."

"Ah for that, Mitchy himself will never let him."

"Well then, with every one helping us all round, aren't we a lovely
family? I don't speak of it to tell tales, but when you mention hearing
from Harold all sorts of things immediately come over me. We seem to be
all living more or less on other people, all immensely 'beholden.' You
can easily say of course that I'm worst of all. The children and their
people, at Bognor, are in borrowed quarters--mother got them lent
her--as to which, no doubt, I'm perfectly aware that I ought to be there
sharing them, taking care of my little brother and sister, instead
of sitting here at Mr. Longdon's expense to expose everything and
criticise. Father and mother, in Scotland, are on a grand campaign.
Well"--she pulled herself up--"I'm not in THAT at any rate. Say you've
lent Harold only five shillings," she went on.

Vanderbank stood smiling. "Well, say I have. I never lend any one
whatever more."

"It only adds to my conviction," Nanda explained, "that he writes to Mr.
Longdon."

"But if Mr. Longdon doesn't say so--?" Vanderbank objected.

"Oh that proves nothing." She got up as she spoke. "Harold also works
Granny." He only laughed out at first for this, while she went on:
"You'll think I make myself out fearfully deep--I mean in the way of
knowing everything without having to be told. That IS, as you say,
mamma's great accomplishment, so it must be hereditary. Besides, there
seem to me only too many things one IS told. Only Mr. Longdon has in
fact said nothing."

She had looked about responsibly--not to leave in disorder t