THE AWKWARD AGE
"He has never given me any," the Dnchess contentedly declared.
Mrs. Brookenham waited a little. "Lord Petherton has the giving of some. He has never in his life before, I imagine, made so many presents."
"Ah then, it's a shame one has nothing!" On which, before reaching the door, the Duchess changed the subject. "You say I never bring Aggie. If you like. I'll bring her back."
Mrs. Brookenham wondered. "Do you mean to-day?"
"Yes, when I've picked her up. It will be something to do with her till Miss Merriman can take her."
"Delighted, dearest; do bring her. And I think she should see Mr. Mitchett."
"Shall I find him too, then?"
"Oh, take the chance."
The two women, on this, exchanged, tacitly and across the room—the Duchess at the door, which a servant had arrived to open for her, and Mrs. Brookenham still at her tea-table—a further stroke of intercourse, over which the latter was not, on this occasion, the first to lower her lids.
"I think I've shown high scruples," the Duchess said, "but I understand, then, that I'm free."
"Free as air, dear Jane."
"Good." Then just as she was off, "Ah, dear old Edward!" the visitor exclaimed. Her kinsman, as she was fond of calling him, had reached the top of the staircase, and Mrs. Brookenham, by the fire, heard them meet on the landing—heard also the Duchess protest against his turning to see her down. Mrs. Brookenham, listening to them, hoped that Edward would accept the protest and think it sufficient to leave her with the footman. Their common consciousness, not devoid of satisfaction, that she was a kind of cousin, was quite consistent with a view, early arrived at, of the absurdity of any fuss about her.
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