r to Lady Mary. "It's the suit
I keep for funerals. A doctor is always being asked to attend them; and
if he does not go he offends the people."

"You might have kept the information to yourself," rebuked Lady Verner.

"It doesn't matter, does it?" asked Jan. "Aren't they good enough to
come in?"

He turned his head round, to get a glance at the said suit behind. Sir
Edmund laid his hand affectionately on his shoulder. Young as Jan had
been before Edmund Hautley went out, they had lived close friends.

"The clothes are all right, Jan. And if you had come without a coat at
all, you would have been equally welcome to me."

"I should not have gone to this sort of thing anywhere else, you know;
it is not in my line, as my mother says. I came to see you."

"And I would rather see you, Jan, than anybody else in the room--with
one exception," was the reply of Sir Edmund. "I am sorry not to see
Lionel."

"He couldn't come," answered Jan. "His wife turned crusty, and said
she'd come if he did--something of that--and so he stayed at home. She
is very ill, and she wants to ignore it, and go out all the same. It is
not fit she should."

"Pray do you mean to dance, Jan?" inquired Lady Verner, the question
being put ironically.

"I?" returned Jan. "Who'd dance with me?"

"I'll dance with you, Jan," said Lady Mary.

Jan shook his head. "I might get my feet entangled in the petticoats."

"Not you, Jan," said Sir Edmund, laughing. "I should risk that, if a
lady asked me."

"She'd not care to dance with me," returned Jan, looking at Mary
Elmsley. "She only says it out of good-nature."

"No, Jan, I don't think I do," frankly avowed Lady Mary. "I should like
to dance with you."

"I'd stand up with you, if I stood up with anybody," replied Jan. "But
where's the good of it? I don't know the figures, and should only put
you out, as well as everybody else."

So, what with his ignorance of the figures, and his dreaded awkwardness
amidst the trains, Jan was allowed to rest in peace. Mary Elmsley told
him that if he would come over sometimes to their house in an evening,
she and her young sisters would practise the figures with him, so that
he might learn them. It was Jan's turn to laugh now. The notion of his
practising dancing, or having evenings to waste on it, amused him
considerably.

"Go to your house to learn dancing!" echoed he. "Folks would be for
putting me into a lunatic asylum. If I do find an hour to myself any