re than a little together without feeling how everything that,
under his eyes or not, she either did or omitted, rested on a profound
acquaintance with his ways. They formed, Edward's ways, a chapter by
themselves, of which Mrs. Brook was completely mistress and in respect
to which the only drawback was that a part of her credit was by the
nature of the case predestined to remain obscure. So many of them were
so queer that no one but she COULD know them, and know thereby into what
crannies her reckoning had to penetrate. It was one of them for instance
that if he was often most silent when most primed with matter, so
when he had nothing to say he was always silent too--a peculiarity
misleading, until mastered, for a lady who could have allowed in the
latter case for almost any variety of remark. "What do you think," he
said at last, "of his turning up to-day?"

"Of old Van's?"

"Oh has HE turned up?"

"Half an hour ago, and asking almost in his first breath for Nanda. I
sent him up to her and he's with her now." If Edward had his ways she
had also some of her own; one of which, in talk with him, if talk it
could be called, was never to produce anything till the need was marked.
She had thus a card or two always in reserve, for it was her theory
that she never knew what might happen. It nevertheless did occur that he
sometimes went, as she would have called it, one better.

"He's not with her now. I've just been with her."

"Then he didn't go up?" Mrs. Brook was immensely interested. "He left
me, you know, to do so."

"Know--how should I know? I left her five minutes ago."

"Then he went out without seeing her." Mrs. Brook took it in. "He
changed his mind out there on the stairs."

"Well," said Edward, "it won't be the first mind that has been changed
there. It's about the only thing a man can change."

"Do you refer particularly to MY stairs?" she asked with her whimsical
woe. But meanwhile she had taken it in. "Then whom were you speaking
of?"

"Mr. Longdon's coming to tea with her. She has had a note."

"But when did he come to town?"

"Last night, I believe. The note, an hour or two ago, announced
him--brought by hand and hoping she'd be at home."

Mrs. Brook thought again. "I'm glad she is. He's too sweet. By hand!--it
must have been so he sent them to mamma. He wouldn't for the world
wire."

"Oh Nanda has often wired to HIM," her father returned.

"Then she ought to be ashamed of herself. But how