She came back but slowly, however, to the moment. “Mr. Longdon? Well, yes. You know he can’t bear ME—”
“Yes, yes”—Mitchy was almost eager.
It had already sent her off again. “You’re too lovely. You HAVE come back the same. It seemed to me,” she after an instant explained, “that I wanted him to be seen—”
“Without inconvenience, as it were, either to himself or to you? Then,” said Mitchy, who visibly felt that he had taken her up successfully, “it strikes me that I’m absolutely your man. It’s delicious to come back to a use.”
But she was much more dim about it. “Oh what you’ve come back to—!”
“It’s just what I’m trying to get at. Van is still then where I left him?”
She was just silent. “Did you really believe he would move?”
Mitchy took a few turns, speaking almost with his back presented. “Well, with all the reasons—!” After which, while she watched him, he was before her again with a question. “It’s utterly off?”
“When was it ever really on?”
“Oh I know your view, and that, I think,” said Mitchy, “is the most extraordinary part of it. I can tell you it would have put ME on.”