“Mr. Longdon—of late? Oh yes, a deluge, so that her room looks like a bookseller’s back shop; and all, in the loveliest bindings, the most standard English works. I not only know it, naturally, but I know—what you don’t—why.”
“‘Why’?” Edward echoed. “Why but that—unless he should send her money—it’s about the only kindness he can show her at a distance?”
Mrs. Brook hesitated; then with a little suppressed sigh: “That’s it!”
But it still held him. “And perhaps he does send her money.”
“No. Not now.”
Edward lingered. “Then is he taking it out—?”
“In books only?” It was wonderful—with its effect on him now visible—how she possessed her subject. “Yes, that’s his delicacy—for the present.”
“And you’re not afraid for the future—?”
“Of his considering that the books will have worked it off? No. They’re thrown in.”
Just perceptibly cheered he reached the door, where, however, he had another pause. “You don’t think I had better see Van?”