“Well, WE shall look at you,” Vanderbank declared. Then he added: “What people do you mean?” And before his friend could reply: “Lady Julia?”
Mr. Longdon’s assent was mute. “Ah she was not the worst! I mean that what made it so bad,” he continued, “was that they all really liked me. Your mother, I think—as to THAT, the dreadful consolatory ‘liking’—even more than the others.”
“My mother?”—Vanderbank was surprised. “You mean there was a question—?”
“Oh for but half a minute! It didn’t take her long. It was five years after your father’s death.”
This explanation was very delicately made. “She COULD marry again.”
“And I suppose you know she did,” Vanderbank returned.
“I knew it soon enough!” With this, abruptly, Mr. Longdon pulled himself forward. “Good-night, good-night.”
“Good-night,” said Vanderbank. “But wasn’t that AFTER Lady Julia?”
On the edge of the sofa, his hands supporting him, Mr. Longdon looked straight. “There was nothing after Lady Julia.”
“I see.” His companion smiled. “My mother was earlier.”