Hugh, dissatisfied, a trifle disgusted too, he hardly knew why, strolled westward. A fresh breeze met him as he walked up Oxford Street. It made him think yearningly of the country, of the heathery hills lying purple under a wind-blown sky, of the pine-clad valley where the solemn trees stood as sentinels about—a grave.
The busy thoroughfare was comparatively still: only a few passengers were strolling west or east. The street lamps twinkled redly in the clear summer night in contrast to the white glimmer of the stars in the fathomless dark blue above. Deep in thought, Hugh, without noticing, wended his way homewards through the square where Lady Forwood lived.
As he passed he saw her brougham waiting and the half-door open. He was hurrying past to avoid a meeting—he was in no humour for ordinary talk—but Lady Forwood, just as she was coming out, had seen him, and called out “Dr. Paull!” so eagerly, there was no escape. He reluctantly turned back.
“I am going to a concert at Lady M——’s,” she said; “positively the last entertainment this season, and very few are in town to go, so my absence would be noticed. But you must come in; I have something most important to ask you.”
She caught the long train of her dress over her arm and preceded him to the dining-room. There was something new in her manner to him which was half annoyed, half-bantering.
“Now, sir, perhaps you will explain,” she said, half-laughingly. “The first intimation we had that we are to be your guests next month was a newspaper paragraph, and you must acknowledge that that is hardly fair.”
Hugh stared at her.
“You—a newspaper paragraph—I do not understand,” he stammered.
“Surely——” she began; then, with a glance at his face, on which there was a comical expression of horror, she turned aside and, repressing a laugh, fetched a newspaper from a side-table, and, opening it, showed him a paragraph in a column headed “Fashionable Intelligence.”
“The Prince and Princess Andriocchi and Sir David and Lady Forwood will be the guests of Dr. Paull at his residence, the Pinewood, Surrey, next month.”