o odd? Oh yes; but Nanda, you know, allows for that oddity.
And Mrs. Brook, by the same token," Mitchy developed, "knows herself--no
one better--what may frequently be thought of it. That's precisely the
reason of her desire that you should have on this occasion explanations
from a source that she's so good as to pronounce, for the immediate
purpose, superior. As for Nanda," he wound up, "to be aware that we're
here together won't strike her as so bad a sign."

"No," Mr. Longdon attentively assented; "she'll hardly fear we're
plotting her ruin. But what then has happened to her?"

"Well," said Mitchy, "it's you, I think, who will have to give it a
name. I know you know what I've known."

Mr. Longdon, his nippers again in place, hesitated. "Yes, I know."

"And you've accepted it."

"How could I help it? To reckon with such cleverness--!"

"Was beyond you? Ah it wasn't my cleverness," Mitchy said. "There's a
greater than mine. There's a greater even than Van's. That's the whole
point," he went on while his friend looked at him hard. "You don't even
like it just a little?"

Mr. Longdon wondered. "The existence of such an element--?"

"No; the existence simply of my knowledge of your idea."

"I suppose I'm bound to keep in mind in fairness the existence of my own
knowledge of yours."

But Mitchy gave that the go-by. "Oh I've so many 'ideas'! I'm always
getting hold of some new one and for the most part trying it--generally
to let it go as a failure. Yes, I had one six months ago. I tried that.
I'm trying it still."

"Then I hope," said Mr. Longdon with a gaiety slightly strained, "that,
contrary to your usual rule, it's a success."

It was a gaiety, for that matter, that Mitchy's could match. "It does
promise well! But I've another idea even now, and it's just what I'm
again trying."

"On me?" Mr. Longdon still somewhat extravagantly smiled.

Mitchy thought. "Well, on two or three persons, of whom you ARE the
first for me to tackle. But what I must begin with is having from you
that you recognise she trusts us."

Mitchy's idea after an instant had visibly gone further. "Both of
them--the two women up there at present so strangely together. Mrs.
Brook must too; immensely. But for that you won't care."

Mr. Longdon had relapsed into an anxiety more natural than his
expression of a moment before. "It's about time! But if Nanda didn't
trust us," he went on, "her case would indeed be a sorry one. She has
nobo