THE AWKWARD AGE
listened to by the others in a quick silence that was like the sense of a blast of cold air, though with the difference, between the spectators, that Vanderbank attached his eyes hard to Mrs. Brook and that the Duchess looked as straight at Mr. Longdon, to whom, clearly, she wished to convey that if he had wondered a short time before how Mrs. Brook would do it he must now be quite as his ease. He indulged in fact, after this lady's last words, in a pause that might have signified some of the fulness of a new light. He only said very quietly: "I thought you liked it."
At this his neighbor broke in. "The care you take of the child? They do!" The Duchess, as she spoke, became aware of the nearer presence of Edward Brookenham, who, within a minute, had come in from the other room; and the determination of her character leaped forth in her quick signal to him. "Edward will tell you." He was already before their semicircle. "Do you, dear," she appealed, "want Nanda back from Mr. Longdon?"
Edward plainly could be trusted to feel in his quiet way that the oracle must be a match for the priestess. "'Want' her, Jane? We wouldn't take her." As if knowing quite what he was about, he looked at his wife only after he had spoken.
XXX
His reply had complete success, to which there could scarce have afterwards been a positive denial that some sound of amusement even from Mr. Longdon himself had in its degree contributed. Certain it was that Mrs. Brook found, as she exclaimed that her husband was always so awfully civil, just the right note of resigned understanding; whereupon he for a minute presented to
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