“I fear I must seem rude, and leave you to-night for an hour or two,” he said, as they rose from table.
“Patients make doctors’ laws,” said Mrs. Mervyn, sagely. “I know that.”
“But this is a private concert at Lady Boisville’s,” said Hugh, uneasily. “Nothing to do with business. In an evil hour I promised to go.”
“My dear, I am so glad that you are coming out of your shell,” said Mrs. Mervyn, warmly. “And that reminds me. When am I to be ready to play hostess at the Pinewood? It is necessary that I should know, to have everything in order.”
Hugh looked at her in consternation. He had forgotten his wild, fleeting ideas that day at the Pinewood. Evidently Mrs. Mervyn had not.
“Oh! I have not thought any more about that,” he said.
“Then I am glad I have reminded you,” said “mammy.” “And really you men of science are so unpractical in ordinary life, that the best thing one can do with you, I think, is to help you a bit. I suppose you mean to ask your friends for the partridge shooting? There are plenty of birds about; and old Cæsar has been taking pains with them since he knew for certain you were coming down.”
Before they parted, Hugh was aware that this was before him: he was to entertain the princess at the Pinewood. It was his own fault. When he had persuaded himself that day in the country that he was planning to entertain Sir David Forwood and his wife, he was deceiving himself.
“I wanted her there,” he told himself, in consternation. “What influence has that girl over me, and how in Heaven’s name did she get it?”
He felt like some ponderous fly may feel entangled in the fine web of a seemingly insignificant spider. That delicate creature! How came it that he, a strong man, was subject to her will, or rather, her caprice?