It is not for Mr. Longdon’s historian to overlook that if he was, not unnaturally, mystified he was yet also visibly interested. “What boat is she in?”
He had addressed his curiosity, with politeness, to Mr. Cashmore, but they were all arrested by the wonderful way in which Mrs. Brook managed to smile at once very dimly, very darkly, and yet make it take them all in. “I think YOU must tell him, Van.”
“Heaven forbid!”—and Van again retreated.
“I’LL tell him like a shot—if you really give me leave,” said Mr. Cashmore, for whom any scruple referred itself manifestly not to the subject of the information but to the presence of a lady.
“I DON’T give you leave and I beg you’ll hold your tongue,” Mrs. Brookenham returned. “You handle such matters with a minuteness—! In short,” she broke off to Mr. Longdon, “he would tell you a good deal more than you’ll care to know. She IS in a boat—but she’s an experienced mariner. Basta, as she would say. Do you know Mitchy?” Mrs. Brook suddenly asked.
“Oh yes, he knows Mitchy”—Vanderbank had approached again.
“Then make HIM tell him”—she put it before the young man as a charming turn for them all. “Mitchy CAN be refined when he tries.”
“Oh dear—when Mitchy ‘tries’!” Vanderbank laughed. “I think I should rather, for the job, offer him to Mr. Longdon abandoned to his native wild impulse.”
“I LIKE Mr. Mitchett,” the old man said, endeavouring to look his hostess straight in the eye and speaking as if somewhat to defy her to convict him, even from the point of view of Beccles, of a mistake.
Mrs. Brookenham took it with a wonderful bright emotion. “My dear friend, vous me rendez la vie! If you can stand Mitchy you can stand any of us!”