Here the gentlemen entered, and a truce to confidentials.
"Has my little wife told you, Mrs. Gower, that I have tickets for 'Faust,' and we hope you will care to accompany us?"
"No; she had not told me, though we were speaking tragedy."
"Well, yours was the prologue; now for 'Faust;' you will come?"
"Yes, with pleasure," she said, feeling that her tête-à-tête with Mr. Blair is over, for Mr. Cobbe would remain; feeling also that such tête-à-tête was too full of quiet content for her to indulge in, engaged as she is to another.
Mr. Blair very reluctantly rises to depart, seeing that the evening he has promised himself, in dual solitude with the woman he determines shall be his wife, is broken in upon.
"Good-night, Mrs. Gower; the walk to town will seem doubly cold by contrast with the warmth of your hospitalities," he said, holding her hand, a look of regret in his blue eyes.
"Button up well, then, to ensure my being remembered for so long," she said, quietly.
"Good-night, Elaine; expect me to-morrow, at five p.m.," said Mr. Cobbe, with an important air.
Outside, to Mr. Blair, he said, "Fine woman, Mrs. Gower; I am in luck, but she has too much freedom," he said, pointedly.