"What do you want to see?" asked Lord Semingham.
"The man in the corner, talking to Mr. Loring."
"Oh, you won't know him even with the glasses. He's the sort of man you must be introduced to three times before there's any chance of a permanent impression."
"You seem to recognise him."
"I know him in business. We are, or rather are going to be, fellow-directors of a company."
"Oh, then I shall see you in the dock together some day."
"What touching faith in the public prosecutor! Does nothing shake your optimism?"
"Perhaps your witticisms."
"Peace, peace!"
"Well, who is he?"
"He was once," observed Lord Semingham, as though stating a curious fact, "in a Government. His name is Foster Belford, and he is still asked to the State Concerts."
"I knew I knew him! Why, Harry Dennison thinks great things of him!"
"It is possible."
"And he, not to be behindhand in politeness, thinks greater of Maggie Dennison."
"His task is the easier."
"And you and he are going to have the effrontery to ask shareholders to trust their money to you?"
"Oh, it isn't us; it's Ruston."
"Mr. Ruston? I've heard of him."
"You very rarely admit that about anybody."
"Moreover, I've met him."
"He's quite coming to the front, of late, I know."
"Is there any positive harm in being in the fashion? I like now and then to talk to the people one is obliged to talk about."
"Go on," said Lord Semingham, urbanely.
"But, my dear Lord Semingham——"
"Hush! Keep the truth from me, like a kind woman. Ah! here comes Tom Loring——How are you, Loring? Where's Dennison?"
"At the House. I ought to be there, too."
"Why, of course. The place of a private secretary is by the side of——"
"His chief's wife. We all know that," interposed Adela Ferrars.
"When you grow old, you'll be sorry for all the wicked things you've said," observed Loring.
"Well, there'll be nothing else to do. Where are you going, Lord Semingham?"
"Home."
"Why?"
"Because I've done my duty. Oh, but here's Dennison, and I want a word with him."
Lord Semingham passed on, leaving the other two together.
"Has Harry Dennison been speaking to-day?" asked Miss Ferrars.
"Well, he had something prepared."
"He had something! You know you write them."
Mr. Loring frowned.
"Yes, and I know we aren't allowed to say so," pursued Adela.
"It's neither just nor kind to Dennison."
Miss Ferrars looked at him, her brows slightly raised.
"And you are both just and kind, really," he added.
"And you, Mr. Loring, are a wonderful man. You're not ashamed to be serious! Oh, yes, I've annoyed—you're quite right. I was—whatever I was—on the ninth of last March, and I think I'm too old to be lectured."
Tom Loring laughed, and, an instant later, Adela followed suit.
"I suppose it was horrid of me," she said. "Can't we turn it round and consider it as a compliment to you?"
Tom looked doubtful, but, before he could answer, Adela cried:
"Oh, here's Evan Haselden, and—yes—it's Mr. Ruston with him?"
As the two men entered, Mrs. Dennison rose from her chair. She was a tall woman; her years fell one or two short of thirty. She was not a beauty, but her broad brow and expressive features, joined to a certain subdued dignity of manner and much grace of movement, made her conspicuous among the women in her drawing-room. Young Evan Haselden seemed to appreciate her, for he bowed his glossy curly head, and shook hands in a way that almost turned the greeting into a deferentially distant caress. Mrs. Dennison acknowledged his hinted homage with a bright smile, and turned to Ruston.
"At last!" she said, with another smile. "The first time after—how many years?"
"Eight, I believe," he answered.
"Oh, you're terribly definite. And what have you been doing with yourself?"
He shrugged his square shoulders, and she did not press her question, but let her eyes wander over him.
"Well?" he asked.
"Oh—improved. And I?"
Suddenly Ruston laughed.
"Last time we met," he said, "you swore you'd never speak to me again."
"I'd quite forgotten my fearful threat."
He looked straight in her face for a moment, as he asked—
"And the cause of it?"
Mrs. Dennison coloured.
"Yes, quite," she answered; and conscious that her words carried no conviction to him, she added hastily, "Go and speak to Harry. There he is."
Ruston obeyed her, and being left for a moment alone, she sat down on the chair placed ready near the door for her short intervals of rest. There was a slight pucker on her brow. The sight of Ruston and his question stirred in her thoughts, which were never long dormant, and which his coming woke into sudden activity. She had not anticipated that he would venture to recall to her that incident—at least, not at once—in the first instant of meeting, at such a time and such a place. But as he had, she found herself yielding to the reminiscence he induced. Forgotten the cause of her anger with him? For the first two or three years of her married life, she would have answered, "Yes, I have forgotten it." Then had come a period when now and again it recurred to her, not for his sake or its own, but as a summary of her stifled feeling; and during that period she had resolutely struggled not to remember it. Of late that struggle had ceased, and the thing lay a perpetual background to her thoughts: when there was nothing else to think about, when the stage of her mind was empty of moving figures, it snatched at the chance of prominence, and thus became a recurrent consciousness from which her interests and her occupations could not permanently rescue her. For example, here she was thinking of it in the very midst of her party. Yet this persistence of memory seemed impertinent, unreasonable, almost insolent. For, as she told herself, finding it necessary to tell herself more and more often, her husband was still all that he had been when he had won her heart—good-looking, good-tempered, infinitely kind and devoted. When she married she had triumphed confidently in these qualities; and the unanimous cry of surprised congratulations at the match she was making had confirmed her own joy and exultation in it. It had been a great match; and yet, beyond all question, also a love match.
But now the chorus of wondering applause was forgotten, and there remained only the one voice which had been raised to break the harmony of approbation—a voice that nobody, herself least of all, had listened to then. How should it be listened to? It came from a nobody—a young man of no account, whose opinion none cared to ask; whose judgment, had it been worth anything in itself, lay under suspicion of being biassed by jealousy. Willie Ruston had never declared himself her suitor; yet (she clung hard to this) he would not have said what he did had not the chagrin of a defeated rival inspired him; and a defeated rival, as everybody knows, will say anything. Certainly she had been right