of your friends?" Frederick was able after an
instant to ask Rose, who made no attempt to introduce the young man
standing awkwardly in front of them but continued to gaze at him with a
kind of abstracted, radiant goodwill.

"It's Mr. Briggs," said Rose, recognizing him. "This is my
husband," she added.

And Briggs, shaking hands, just had time to think how surprising
it was to have a husband when you were a widow before the gong sounded,
and Lady Caroline would be there in a minute, and he ceased to be able
to think at all, and merely became a thing with its eyes fixed on the
door.

Through the door immediately entered, in what seemed to him an
endless procession, first Mrs. Fisher, very stately in her evening lace
shawl and brooch, who when she saw him at once relaxed into smiles and
benignity, only to stiffen, however, when she caught sight of the
stranger; then Mr. Wilkins, cleaner and neater and more carefully
dressed and brushed than any man on earth; and then, tying something
hurriedly as she came, Mrs. Wilkins; and then nobody.

Lady Caroline was late. Where was she? Had she heard the gong?
Oughtn't it to be beaten again? Suppose she didn't come to dinner
after all. . .

Briggs went cold.

"Introduce me," said Frederick on Mrs. Fisher's entrance,
touching Rose's elbow.

"My husband," said Rose, holding him by the hand, her face
exquisite.

"This," thought Mrs. Fisher, "must now be the last of the
husbands, unless Lady Caroline produces one from up her sleeve."

But she received him graciously, for he certainly looked exactly
like a husband, not at all like one of those people who go about abroad
pretending they are husbands when they are not, and said she supposed
he had come to accompany his wife home at the end of the month, and
remarked that now the house would be completely full. "So that," she
added, smiling at Briggs, "we shall at last really be getting our
money's worth."

Briggs grinned automatically, because he was just able to realize
that somebody was being playful with him, but he had not heard her and
he did not look at her. Not only were his eyes fixed on the door but
his whole body was concentrated on it.

Introduced in his turn, Mr. Wilkins was most hospitable and
called Frederick "sir."

"Well, sir," said Mr. Wilkins heartily, "here we are, here we
are"--and having gripped his hand with an understanding that only
wasn't mutual because Arbuthnot did not yet know what he wa