"HAS she a broken nose?" Mr. Longdon demanded with an accent that for some reason touched in the others the spring of laughter.
"Has Nanda never mentioned it?" Mrs. Brook profited by this gaiety to ask.
"That"s the discretion you just spoke of," said the d.u.c.h.ess. "Only I should have expected from the cause you refer to rather the comic effect."
"Mrs. Grendon"s broken nose, sir," Vanderbank explained to Mr. Longdon, "is only the kinder way taken by these ladies to speak of Mrs. Grendon"s broken heart. You must know all about that."
"Oh yes--ALL." Mr. Longdon spoke very simply, with the consequence this time, on the part of his companions, of a silence of some minutes, which he himself had at last to break. "Mr. Grendon doesn"t like her." The addition of these words apparently made the difference--as if they const.i.tuted a fresh link with the irresistible comedy of things. That he was unexpectedly diverting was, however, no check to Mr. Longdon"s delivering his full thought. "Very horrid of two sisters to be both, in their marriages, so wretched."
"Ah but Tishy, I maintain," Mrs. Brook returned, "ISN"T wretched at all.
If I were satisfied that she"s really so I"d never let Nanda come to her."
"That"s the most extraordinary doctrine, love," the d.u.c.h.ess interposed.
"When you"re satisfied a woman"s "really" poor you never give her a crust?"
"Do you call Nanda a crust, d.u.c.h.ess?" Vanderbank amusedly asked.
"She"s all at any rate, apparently, just now, that poor Tishy has to live on."
"You"re severe then," the young man said, "on our dinner of to-night."
"Oh Jane," Mrs. Brook declared, "is never severe: she"s only uncontrollably witty. It"s only Tishy moreover who gives out that her husband doesn"t like her. HE, poor man, doesn"t say anything of the sort."
"Yes, but, after all, you know"--Vanderbank just put it to her--"where the deuce, all the while, IS he?"
"Heaven forbid," the d.u.c.h.ess remarked, "that we should too rashly ascertain."
"There it is--exactly," Mr. Longdon subjoined.
He had once more his success of hilarity, though not indeed to the injury of the d.u.c.h.ess"s next word. "It"s Nanda, you know, who speaks, and loud enough, for Harry Grendon"s dislikes."
"That"s easy for her," Mrs. Brook declared, "when she herself isn"t one of them."
"She isn"t surely one of anybody"s," Mr. Longdon gravely observed.
Mrs. Brook gazed across at him. "You ARE too dear! But I"ve none the less a crow to pick with you."
Mr. Longdon returned her look, but returned it somehow to Van. "You frighten me, you know, out of my wits."
"_I_ do?" said Vanderbank.
Mr. Longdon just hesitated. "Yes."
"It must be the sacred terror," Mrs. Brook suggested to Van, "that Mitchy so often speaks of. I"M not trying with you," she went on to Mr.
Longdon, "for anything of that kind, but only for the short half-hour in private that I think you won"t for the world grant me. Nothing will induce you to find yourself alone with me."
"Why what on earth," Vanderbank asked, "do you suspect him of supposing you want to do?"
"Oh it isn"t THAT," Mrs. Brook sadly said.
"It isn"t what?" laughed the d.u.c.h.ess.
"That he fears I may want in any way to--what do you call it?--make up to him." She spoke as if she only wished it had been. "He has a deeper thought."
"Well then what in goodness is it?" the d.u.c.h.ess pressed.
Mr. Longdon had said nothing more, but Mrs. Brook preferred none the less to treat the question as between themselves. She WAS, as the others said, wonderful. "You can"t help thinking me"--she spoke to him straight--"rather tortuous." The pause she thus momentarily produced was so intense as to give a sharpness that was almost vulgar to the little "Oh!" by which it was presently broken and the source of which neither of her three companions could afterwards in the least have named.
Neither would have endeavoured to fix an infelicity of which each doubtless had been but too capable. "It"s only as a mother," she added, "that I want my chance."
But the d.u.c.h.ess was at this again in the breach. "Take it, for mercy"s sake then, my dear, over Harold, who"s an example to Nanda herself in the way that, behind the piano there, he"s keeping it up with Lady f.a.n.n.y."
If this had been a herring that, in the interest of peace, the d.u.c.h.ess had wished to draw across the scent, it could scarce have been more effective. Mrs. Brook, whose position had made just the difference that she lost the view of the other side of the piano, took a slight but immediate stretch. "IS Harold with Lady f.a.n.n.y?"
"You ask it, my dear child," said the d.u.c.h.ess, "as if it were too grand to be believed. It"s the note of eagerness," she went on for Mr.
Longdon"s benefit--"it"s almost the note of hope: one of those that ces messieurs, that we all in fact delight in and find so matchless. She desires for Harold the highest advantages."
"Well then," declared Vanderbank, who had achieved a glimpse, "he"s clearly having them. It brings home to one his success."
"His success is true," Mrs. Brook insisted. "How he does it I don"t know."
"Oh DON"T you?" trumpeted the d.u.c.h.ess.
"He"s amazing," Mrs. Brook pursued. "I watch--I hold my breath. But I"m bound to say also I rather admire. He somehow amuses them."
"She"s as pleased as Punch," said the d.u.c.h.ess.
"Those great calm women--they like slighter creatures."
"The great calm whales," the d.u.c.h.ess laughed, "swallow the little fishes."
"Oh my dear," Mrs. Brook returned, "Harold can be tasted, if you like--"
"If _I_ like?" the d.u.c.h.ess parenthetically jeered. "Thank you, love!"
"But he can"t, I think, be eaten. It all works out," Mrs. Brook expounded, "to the highest end. If Lady f.a.n.n.y"s amused she"ll be quiet."
"Bless me," cried the d.u.c.h.ess, "of all the immoral speeches--! I put it to you, Longdon. Does she mean"--she appealed to their friend--"that if she commits murder she won"t commit anything else?"
"Oh it won"t be murder," said Mrs. Brook. "I mean that if Harold, in one way and another, keeps her along, she won"t get off."
"Off where?" Mr. Longdon risked.
Vanderbank immediately informed him. "To one of the smaller Italian towns. Don"t you know?"
"Oh yes. Like--who is it? I forget."
"Anna Karenine? You know about Anna?"