“Thank you most tremendously,” his companion quietly replied.
Something in the tone of it made him laugh out, and the particular sound went well with all the rest, with the August day and the charming spot and the young man’s lounging figure and Nanda’s own little hovering hospitality. “Of course I strike you as patronising you with unconscious sublimity. Well, that’s all right, for what’s the most natural thing to do in these conditions but the most luxurious? Won’t Mitchy be wonderful for feeling and enjoying them? I assure you I’m delighted he’s coming.” Then in a different tone a moment later, “Do you expect to be here long?” he asked.
It took Nanda some time to say. “As long as Mr. Longdon will keep me, I suppose—if that doesn’t sound very horrible.”
“Oh he’ll keep you! Only won’t he himself,” Vanderbank went on, “be coming up to town in the course of the autumn?”
“Well, in that case I’d perfectly stay here without him.”
“And leave him in London without YOU? Ah that’s not what we want: he wouldn’t be at all the same thing without you. Least of all for himself!” Vanderbank declared.
Nanda again thought. “Yes, that’s what makes him funny, I suppose—his curious infatuation. I set him off—what do you call it?—show him off: by his going round and round me as the acrobat on the horse in the circus goes round the clown. He has said a great deal to me of your mother,” she irrelevantly added.
“Ok everything that’s kind of course, or you wouldn’t mention it.”
“That’s what I mean,” said Nanda.
“I see, I see—most charming of him.” Vanderbank kept his high head thrown back as for the view, with a bright equal general interest, of everything that was before them, whether talked of or seen. “Who do you think I yesterday had a letter from? An extraordinary funny one from Harold. He gave me all the family news.”