Her visitor smiled. “Not so much as a cigarette. I’ve always my pockets full of them, and HE never: so he only takes mine. Oh Mrs. Brook,” he continued, “with me too—though I’ve also tremendous liberty!—it would come out.”
“I think you’d let me know,” she returned.
“Yes, I’d let you know.”
Silence, upon this, fell between them a little; which she was the first to break. “She has gone with him this afternoon—by solemn appointment—to the South Kensington Museum.”
There was something in Mrs. Brook’s dolorous drop that yet presented the news as a portent so great that he was moved again to mirth. “Ah that’s where she is? Then I confess she has scored. He has never taken ME to the South Kensington Museum.”
“You were asking what we’re going to do,” she went on. “What I meant was—about Baireuth—that the question for Nanda’s simplified. He has pressed her so to pay him a visit.”
Vanderbank’s assent was marked. “I see: so that if you do go abroad she’ll be provided for by that engagement.”
“And by lots of other invitations.”
These were such things as, for the most part, the young man could turn over. “Do you mean you’d let her go alone—?”
“To wherever she’s asked?” said Mrs. Brook. “Why not? Don’t talk like the Duchess.”