“Oh but he’s English. And he knows everything we do—and everything we think.”
“‘We’—your aunt, your governess and your nurse? What a varied wealth of knowledge!”
“Ah Miss Merriman and Gelsomina tell him only what they like.”
“And do you and the Duchess tell him what you DON’T like?”
“Oh often—but we always like HIM—no matter what we tell him. And we know that just the same he always likes us.”
“I see then of course,” said Mr. Longdon, very gravely now, “what a friend he must be. So it’s after all this,” he continued in a moment, “that Nanda comes in?”
His companion had to consider, but suddenly she caught assistance. “This one, I think, comes before.” Lord Petherton, arriving apparently from the garden, had drawn near unobserved by Mr. Longdon and the next moment was within hail. “I see him very often,” she continued—“oftener than Nanda. Oh but THEN Nanda. And then,” little Aggie wound up, “Mr. Mitchy.”
“Oh I’m glad HE comes in,” Mr. Longdon returned, “though rather far down in the list.” Lord Petherton was now before them, there being no one else on the terrace to speak to, and, with the odd look of an excess of physical power that almost blocked the way, he seemed to give them in the flare of his big teeth the benefit of a kind of brutal geniality. It was always to be remembered for him that he could scarce show without surprising you an adjustment to the smaller conveniences; so that when he took up a trifle it was not perforce in every case the sign of an uncanny calculation. When the elephant in the show plays the fiddle it must be mainly with the presumption of consequent apples; which was why, doubtless, this personage had half the time the air of assuring you that, really civilised as his type had now become, no apples were required. Mr. Longdon viewed him with a vague apprehension and as if quite unable to meet the question of what he would have called for such a personage the social responsibility. Did this specimen of his class pull the tradition down or did he just take it where he found it—in the very different place from that in which, on ceasing so long ago to “go out,” Mr. Longdon had left it? Our friend doubtless averted himself from the possibility of a mental dilemma; if the man didn’t lower the position was it the position then that let down the man? Somehow he wasn’t positively up. More evidence would be needed to decide; yet it was just of more evidence that one remained rather in dread. Lord Petherton was kind to little Aggie, kind to her companion, kind to every one, after Mr. Longdon had explained that she was so good as to be giving him the list of her dear friends. “I’m only a little dismayed,” the elder man said, “to find Mr. Mitchett at the bottom.”
“Oh but it’s an awfully short list, isn’t it? If it consists only of me and Mitchy he’s not so very low down. We don’t allow her very MANY friends; we look out too well for ourselves.” He addressed the child as on an easy jocose understanding. “Is the question, Aggie, whether we shall allow you Mr. Longdon? Won’t that rather ‘do’ for us—for Mitchy and me? I say, Duchess,” he went on as this lady reappeared, “ARE we going to allow her Mr. Longdon and do we quite realise what we’re about? We mount guard awfully, you know”—he carried the joke back to the person he had named. “We sift and we sort, we pick the candidates over, and I should like to hear any one say that in this case at least I don’t keep a watch on my taste. Oh we close in!”
The Duchess, the object of her quest in her hand, had come back. “Well then Mr. Longdon will close WITH us—you’ll consider henceforth that he’s as safe as yourself. Here’s the letter I wanted you to read—with which you’ll please take a turn, in strict charge of the child, and then restore her to us. If you don’t come I shall know you’ve found Mitchy and shall be at peace. Go, little heart,” she continued to the child, “but leave me your book to look over again. I don’t know that I’m quite sure!” She sent them off together, but had a grave protest as her friend put out his hand for the volume. “No, Petherton—not for books; for her reading I can’t say I do trust you. But for everything else—quite!” she declared to Mr. Longdon with a look of conscientious courage as their companion withdrew. “I do believe,” she pursued in the same spirit, “in a certain amount of intelligent confidence. Really nice men are steadied by the sense of your having had it. But I wouldn’t,” she added gaily, “trust him all round!”