would never in the least be a bar to affection. "Please take all your
time."

Mr. Longdon looked at his watch again. "Do you think I HAD better keep
it?"

"The cab?" Vanderbank liked him so, found in him such a promise of
pleasant things, that he was almost tempted to say: "Dear and delightful
sir, don't weigh that question; I'll pay, myself, for the man's whole
night!" His approval at all events was complete.

"Most certainly. That's the only way not to think of it."

"Oh you young men, you young men!" his guest again murmured. He had
passed on to the photograph--Vanderbank had many, too many photographs--
of some other relation, and stood wiping the gold-mounted glasses
through which he had been darting admirations and catching side-lights
for shocks. "Don't talk nonsense," he continued as his friend attempted
once more to throw in a protest; "I belong to a different period of
history. There have been things this evening that have made me feel as
if I had been disinterred--literally dug up from a long sleep. I assure
you there have!"--he really pressed the point.

Vanderbank wondered a moment what things in particular these might be;
he found himself wanting to get at everything his visitor represented,
to enter into his consciousness and feel, as it were, on his side. He
glanced with an intention freely sarcastic at an easy possibility. "The
extraordinary vitality of Brookenham?"

Mr. Longdon, with nippers in place again, fixed on him a gravity that