's very clever--with
a person like you--to be never there! Perhaps it's the only way to make
you think about him!"

"What do you mean by a person like me?"

"You are right. There is no one like you. Anyhow, it's a cleverness I
could never pretend to. I know I should be always there, or thereabouts.
At all risks! Yes, all! I always say so."

The New Gallery certainly did seem to raise their spirits. They sat
there for a long time exchanging ideas and avoiding the pictures in a
marked manner. Felicity had nothing whatever to do that evening, which
she had intended to spend with her husband. Savile, who was staying with
her, wouldn't be back from Craig-y-nos till heaven knew when. Oddly
enough, Mr. Wilton also had no engagement that evening. "So much so," he
said, that he had taken a large box at the Gaiety all by himself, to go
and see that new thing. Felicity, oddly enough--it was the first
night--had not seen the piece. He advised that she should. Then she
would have to dine all alone at home while poor Mr. Wilton was going to
dine in lonely solemnity at the Carlton. Matters were adjusted so far
that she agreed to meet him at the restaurant on condition he made up a
party.

"Ask Vera Ogilvie and Captain Henderson. Perhaps the horrid noise and
vulgarity, and your society, may brighten me up," she said consolingly,
"or at least divert my thoughts."

He sincerely hoped so. Much telephoning at the Club resulted in a
promise from Bob and Mrs. Ogilvie to come too, so all was well.

But Felicity dressed for dinner in quite an irritable frame of mind, and
nearly cried because she accidentally broke a fan Chetwode had given
her.

Mr. Wilton could not have been quite so depressed, really, for after
flying off in the adored motor to the Gaiety and the Carlton on urgent
matters of business, he went home and looked a very long time at the
little Romney quite cheerfully. He found himself beaming so markedly in
the mirror over his button-hole and white waistcoat when dressing, that
it suddenly struck him both the smile and the button-hole were overdone.
They were triumphant, and triumph was vulgar (and premature). He removed
them both, and went out with a suitable tinge of gentle restrained
melancholy, at once very becoming, respectful, and, he trusted,
interesting. He knew he had not lost much ground by his boldness at his
first visit. A woman can pardon a moment of audacity more easily than a
moment of misplaced respectful