"Besides, here we are together, share and share alike--one beautiful intelligence.
Mr.Longdon's 'somebody' is of course Van.

Don't try to treat me as an outsider." Vanderbank looked a little foolishly, though it was but the shade of a shade, from one of them to the other.

"I think I've been rather an ass!" "What then by the terms of our friendship--just as Mitchy says--can he and I have a better right to know and to feel with you about?
You'll want, Mitchy, won't you ?" Mrs.Brook went on, "to hear all about THAT ?" "Oh I only mean," Vanderbank explained, "in having just now blurted my tale out to you.

However, I of course do know," he pursued to Mitchy, "that whatever's really between us will remain between us.

Let me then tell you myself exactly what's the matter." The length of his pause after these words showed at last that he had stopped short; on which his companions, as they waited, exchanged a sympathetic look.