[The Awkward Age by Henry James]@TWC D-Link book
The Awkward Age

BOOK SEVENTH
46/79

"Yes--I see.

I DON'T mind.

I've the most extraordinary lacunae." "Oh I don't know about others," Nanda replied; "I haven't noticed them.
But you've that one, and it's enough." He continued to face her with his queer mixture of assent and speculation.

"Enough for what, my dear?
To have made me impossible for you because the only man you could, as they say, have 'respected' would be a man who WOULD have minded ?" Then as under the cool soft pressure of the question she looked at last away from him: "The man with 'THE kind,' as you call it, happens to be just the type you CAN love?
But what's the use," he persisted as she answered nothing, "in loving a person with the prejudice--hereditary or other--to which you're precisely obnoxious?
Do you positively LIKE to love in vain ?" It was a question, the way she turned back to him seemed to say, that deserved a responsible answer.

"Yes." But she had moved off after speaking, and Mitchy's eyes followed her to different parts of the room as, with small pretexts of present attention to it, small bestowed touches for symmetry, she slowly measured it.
"What's extraordinary then is your idea of my finding any charm in Aggie's ignorance." She immediately put down an old snuff-box.


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