Only I've never yet quite made
out the reason of her wish."
"The reason is largely," his friend answered, "that, being very fond of
Aggie and in fact extremely admiring her, she wants to do something good
for her and to keep her from anything bad. Don't you know--it's too
charming--she regularly believes in her?" Mitchy, with all his
recognition, vibrated to the touch. "Isn't it too charming?"
"Well then," Vanderbank went on, "she secures for her friend a phoenix
like you, and secures for you a phoenix like her friend. It's hard to
say for which of you she desires most to do the handsome thing. She
loves you both in short"--he followed it up--"though perhaps when one
thinks of it the price she puts on you, Mitchy, in the arrangement, is a
little the higher. Awfully fine at any rate--and yet awfully odd too--
her feeling for Aggie's type, which is divided by such abysses from her
own."
"Ah," laughed Mitchy, "but think then of her feeling for mine!"
Vanderbank, still more at his ease now and with his head back, had his
eyes aloft and far. "Oh there are things in Nanda--!" The others
exchanged a glance at this, while their companion added: "Little Aggie's
really the sort of creature she would have liked to be able to be."
"Well," Mitchy said, "I should have adored her even if she HAD been
able."
Mrs. Brook had for some minutes played no audible part, but the acute
observer we are constantly taking for granted would perhaps have
detected in her, as one of the effects of the special complexion to-day
of Vanderbank's presence, a certain smothered irritation.
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