"
"Ah what's that," the Duchess asked in his interest, "but to follow
Nanda as closely as possible, or at any rate to keep well with her?"
Mrs. Brook, however, had no ear for this plea. "And when I, coming here
too and thinking only of my chance to 'meet' you, do my very sweetest to
catch your eye, you're entirely given up--!"
"To trying of course," the Duchess broke in afresh, "to keep well with
ME!"
Mrs. Brook now had a smile for her. "Ah that takes precautions then that
I shall perhaps fail of if I too much interrupt your conversation."
"Isn't she nice to me," the Duchess asked of Mr. Longdon, "when I was in
the very act of praising her to the skies?"
Their interlocutor's reply was not too rapid to anticipate Mrs. Brook
herself. "My dear Jane, that only proves his having reached some
extravagance in the other sense that you had in mere decency to match.
The truth is probably in the 'mean'--isn't that what they call it?--
between you. Don't YOU now take him away," she went on to Vanderbank,
who had glanced about for some better accommodation.
He immediately pushed forward the nearest chair, which happened to be by
the Duchess's side of the sofa. "Will you sit here, sir?"
"If you'll stay to protect me."
"That was really what I brought him over to you for," Mrs. Brook said
while Mr. Longdon took his place and Vanderbank looked out for another
seat. "But I didn't know," she observed with her sweet free curiosity,
"that he called you 'sir.
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