The old man’s face at last, partly bewildered, partly reassured, showed something finer still in the effect she produced. “Into what mysteries you plunge!”
“Oh we do; that’s what every one says of us. We discuss everything and every one--we’re always discussing each other. I think we must be rather celebrated for it, and it’s a kind of trick--isn’t it?--that’s catching. But don’t you think it’s the most interesting sort of talk? Mother says we haven’t any prejudices. YOU have, probably, quantities--and beautiful ones: so perhaps I oughtn’t to tell you. But you’ll find out for yourself.”
“Yes--I’m rather slow; but I generally end by finding out. And I’ve got, thank heaven,” said Mr. Longdon, “quite prejudices enough.”
“Then I hope you’ll tell me some of them,” Nanda replied in a tone evidently marking how much he pleased her.
“Ah you must do as _I_ do--you must find out for yourself. Your resemblance to your grandmother is quite prodigious,” he immediately added.
“That’s what I wish you’d tell me about--your recollection of her and your wonderful feeling about her. Mother has told me things, but that I should have something straight from you is exactly what she also wants. My grandmother must have been awfully nice,” the girl rambled on, “and I somehow don’t see myself at all as the same sort of person.”
“Oh I don’t say you’re in the least the same sort: all I allude to,” Mr. Longdon returned, “is the miracle of the physical heredity. Nothing could be less like her than your manner and your talk.”
Nanda looked at him with all her honesty. “They’re not so good, you must think.”
He hung fire an instant, but was as honest as she. “You’re separated from her by a gulf--and not only of time. Personally, you see, you breathe a different air.”
She thought--she quite took it in. “Of course. And you breathe the same--the same old one, I mean, as my grandmother.”
“The same old one,” Mr. Longdon smiled, “as much as possible. Some day I’ll tell you more of what you’re curious of. I can’t go into it now.”
“Because I’ve upset you so?” Nanda frankly asked.
“I think I can see another too,” she observed after a moment. “You’re not sure how much I shall understand. But I shall understand,” she went on, “more, perhaps, than you think. In fact,” she said earnestly, “I PROMISE to understand. I’ve some imagination. Had my grandmother?” she asked. Her actual sequences were not rapid, but she had already anticipated him. “I’ve thought of that before, because I put the same question to mother.”