THE AWKWARD AGE
may be making, but I dare say if you had let Harold borrow, you would have another manner, and I was at any rate determined to have the question out with you."
"Let us always have everything out—that's quite my own idea. It's you," said Mr. Mitchett, "who are by no means always so frank with me as I recognize—oh, I do that!—what it must have cost you to be over this little question of Harold. There's one thing, Mrs. Brook, you do dodge."
"What do I ever dodge, dear Mitchy?" Mrs. Brook quite tenderly asked.
"Why, when I ask you about your other child you're off like a frightened fawn. When have you ever, on my doing so, said 'My darling Mitchy, I'll ring for her to be asked to come down, and you can see her for yourself'—when have you ever said anything like that?"
"I see," Mrs. Brookenham mused; "you think I sacrifice her. You're very interesting among you all, and I've certainly a delightful circle. The Duchess has just been letting me have it most remarkably hot, and as she's presently coming back you'll be able to join forces with her."
Mitchy looked a little of a loss. "On the subject of your sacrifice—?"
"Of my innocent and helpless, yet somehow at the same time, as a consequence of my cynicism, dreadfully damaged and depraved daughter." She took in, for an instant, the slight bewilderment against which, as a result of her speech, even so expert an intelligence as Mr. Mitchett's had not been proof; then, with a small jerk of her head at the other side of the room, she made the quickest of transitions. "What is there between her and him?"
Mitchy wondered at the other two. "Between Edward and the girl?"
"Don't talk nonsense. Between Petherton and Jane."
70
