ted to return at eight o'clock. There were accordingly
almost too many people at dinner; there were even a couple of wives.
Nick Dormer was then present, though he had not been in the afternoon.
Each of the other persons had said on coming in, "So you've not
gone--I'm awfully glad." Mrs. Dallow had replied, "No, I've not gone,"
but she had in no case added that she was glad, nor had she offered an
explanation. She never offered explanations; she always assumed that no
one could invent them so well as those who had the florid taste to
desire them.

And in this case she was right, since it is probable that few of her
visitors failed to say to themselves that her not having gone would have
had something to do with Dormer. That could pass for an explanation with
many of Mrs. Dallow's friends, who as a general thing were not morbidly
analytic; especially with those who met Nick as a matter of course at
dinner. His figuring at this lady's entertainments, being in her house
whenever a candle was lighted, was taken as a sign that there was
something rather particular between them. Nick had said to her more than
once that people would wonder why they didn't marry; but he was wrong in
this, inasmuch as there were many of their friends to whom it wouldn't
have occurred that his position could be improved. That they were
cousins was a fact not so evident to others as to themselves, in
consequence of which they appeared remarkably intimate. The person
seeing clearest in the matter was Mrs. Gresham, who lived so much in the
world that being left now and then to one's own company had become her
idea of true sociability. She knew very well that if she had been
privately engaged to a young man as amiable as Nick Dormer she would
have managed that publicity shouldn't play such a part in their
intercourse; and she had her secret scorn for the stupidity of people
whose conception of Nick's relation to Julia rested on the fact that he
was always included in her parties. "If he never was there they might
talk," she said to herself. But Mrs. Gresham was supersubtle. To her it
would have appeared natural that her friend should celebrate the
parliamentary recess by going down to Harsh and securing the young man's
presence there for a fortnight; she recognised Mrs. Dallow's actual plan
as a comparatively poor substitute--the project of spending the
holidays in other people's houses, to which Nick had also promised to
come. Mrs. Gresham was roman