rmed Henry behind her hand.
'It's his favourite novel.'

The discussion proceeded under difficulties, for no one was loquacious
except Mr. Dolbiac, and all Mr. Dolbiac's utterances were staccato and
senseless. The game had had several narrow escapes of extinction, when
Miss Marchrose galvanized it by means of a long and serious monologue
treating of the sorts of man with whom a self-respecting woman will
never fall in love. There appeared to be about a hundred and
thirty-three sorts of that man.

'There is one sort of man with whom no woman, self-respecting or
otherwise, will fall in love,' said Mr. Dolbiac, 'and that is the sort
of man she can't kiss without having to stand on the mantelpiece.
Alas!'--he hid his face in his handkerchief--'I am that sort.'

'Without having to stand on the mantelpiece?' Mrs. Ashton Portway
repeated. 'What can he mean? Mr. Dolbiac, you aren't playing the game.'

'Yes, I am, gracious lady,' he contradicted her.

'Well, what character are you, then?' demanded Miss Marchrose,
irritated by his grotesque pendant to her oration.

'I'm Gerald in _A Question of Cubits_.'

The company felt extremely awkward. Henry blushed.

'I said classical fiction,' Mrs. Ashton Portway corrected Mr. Dolbiac
stiffly. 'Of course I don't mean to insinuate that it isn't----' She
turned to Henry.

'Oh! did you?' observed Dolbiac calmly. 'So sorry. I knew it was a silly
and nincompoopish book, but I thought you wouldn't mind so long as----'

'_Mr._ Dolbiac!'

That particular Wednesday of Mrs. Ashton Portway's came to an end in
hurried confusion. Mr. Dolbiac professed to be entirely ignorant of
Henry's identity, and went out into the night. Henry assured his hostess
that really it was nothing, except a good joke. But everyone felt that
the less said, the better. Of such creases in the web of social life
Time is the best smoother.

CHAPTER XXII

HE LEARNS MORE ABOUT WOMEN

When Henry had rendered up his ticket and recovered his garments, he
found Geraldine in the hall, and a servant asking her if she wanted a
four-wheeler or a hansom. He was not quite sure whether she had
descended before him or after him: things were rather misty.

'I am going your way,' he said. 'Can't I see you home?'

He was going her way: the idea of going her way had occurred to him
suddenly as a beautiful idea.

Instead of replying, she looked at him. She looked at him sadly out of
the white shawl which enveloped her