At this her old friend turned to her. “But it wasn’t because of that I got rid of him.”
She had a pause. “No—you don’t mind everything mamma says.”
“I don’t mind ‘everything’ anybody says: not even, my dear, when the person’s you.”
Again she waited an instant. “Not even when it’s Mr. Van?”
Mr. Longdon candidly considered. “Oh I take him up on all sorts of things.”
“That shows then the importance they have for you. Is HE like his grandmother?” the girl pursued. Then as her companion looked vague: “Wasn’t it his grandmother too you knew?”
He had an extraordinary smile. “His mother.”
She exclaimed, colouring, on her mistake, and he added: “I’m not so bad as that. But you’re none of you like them.”
“Wasn’t she pretty?” Nanda asked.
“Very handsome. But it makes no difference. She herself to-day wouldn’t know him.”