So there we are." To this discussion the subject of it had for the time nothing to contribute, even when Mitchy, rising with the words he had last uttered from the chair in which he had been placed, took sociably as well, on the hearth-rug, a position before their hostess.

This move ministered apparently to Vanderbank's mere silence, for it was still without speaking that, after a little, he turned away from his friend and dropped once more into the same seat.

"I've shown you already, you of course remember," Vanderbank presently said to him, "that I'm perfectly aware of how much better Mrs.Brook would like YOU for the position." "He thinks I want him myself," Mrs.Brook blandly explained.
She was indeed, as they always thought her, "wonderful," but she was perhaps not even now so much so as Mitchy found himself able to be.

"But how would you lose old Van--even at the worst ?" he earnestly asked of her.
She just hesitated.

"What do you mean by the worst ?" "Then even at the best," Mitchy smiled.