got a man
of her own."

"Well, but if he's the wrong one?"

"Do you call Mr. Longdon so very wrong? I wish," she declared with a
strange sigh, "that _I_ had had a Mr. Longdon!"

"I wish very much you had. I wouldn't have taken it like Van."

"Oh it took Van," Mrs. Brook replied, "to put THEM where they are."

"But where ARE they? That's exactly it. In these three months, for
instance," Edward demanded, "how has their connexion profited?"

Mrs. Brook turned it over. "Profited which?"

"Well, one cares most for one's child."

"Then she has become for him what we've most hoped her to be--an object
of compassion still more marked."

"Is that what you've hoped her to be?" Mrs. Brook was obviously so lucid
for herself that her renewed expression of impatience had plenty of
point. "How can you ask after seeing what I did--"

"That night at Mrs. Grendon's? Well, it's the first time I HAVE asked
it."

Mrs. Brook had a silence more pregnant. "It's for being with US that he
pities her."

Edward thought. "With me too?"

"Not so much--but still you help."

"I thought you thought I didn't--that night."

"At Tishy's? Oh you didn't matter," said Mrs. Brook. "Everything, every
one helps. Harold distinctly"--she seemed to figure it all out--"and
even the poor children, I dare say, a little. Oh but every one"--she
warmed to the vision--"it's perfect. Jane immensely, par example.
Almost all the others who come to the house. Cashmore, Carrie, Tishy,
Fanny--bless their hearts all!--each in their degree."

Edward Brookenham had under the influence of this demonstration
gradually risen from his seat, and as his wife approached that part
of her process which might be expected to furnish the proof he placed
himself before her with his back to the fire. "And Mitchy, I suppose?"

But he was out. "No. Mitchy's different."

He wondered. "Different?"

"Not a help. Quite a drawback." Then as his face told how these WERE
involutions, "You needn't understand, but you can believe me," she
added. "The one who does most is of course Van himself." It was a
statement by which his failure to apprehend was not diminished, and she
completed her operation. "By not liking her."

Edward's gloom, on this, was not quite blankness, yet it was dense. "Do
you like his not liking her?"

"Dear no. No better than HE does."

"And he doesn't--?"

"Oh he hates it."

"Of course I haven't asked him," Edward appeared to say more to himself
than