"Then he will have less power to plead that he is engaged. What do you say, Mrs. Roden? It would give me the most unaffected pleasure. Like your father, Miss Fay, I, too, am unaccustomed to much going out, as you call it. I am as peculiar as he is. Let us acknowledge that we are all peculiar people, and that therefore there is the more reason why we should come together. Mrs. Roden, do not try to prevent an arrangement which will give me the greatest pleasure, and to which there cannot be any real objection. Why should not Mr. Fay make acquaintance with your son's friend? Which day would suit you best, Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday?"
At last it was settled that at any rate George Roden should dine at Hendon Hall on the Friday,—he being absent during the discussion,—and that time must be taken as to any further acceptance of the invitation. Mrs. Roden was inclined to think that it had best be regarded as impossible. She thought that she had made up her mind never to dine out again. Then there came across her mind a remembrance that her son was engaged to marry this young man's sister, and that it might be for his welfare that she should give way to these overtures of friendship. When her thoughts had travelled so far as this, she might have felt sure that the invitation would at last be accepted.
As to Marion Fay, the subject was allowed to drop without any further decision. She had said that it was impossible, and she said nothing more. That was the last dictum heard from her; but it was not repeated as would probably have been the case had she been quite sure that it was impossible. Mrs. Roden during the interview did not allude to that branch of the subject again. She was fluttered with what had already been said, a little angry with herself that she had so far yielded, a little perplexed at her own too evident confusion, a little frightened at Lord Hampstead's evident admiration of the girl. As to Marion, it must, of course, be left to her father,—as would the question as to the Quaker himself.
"I had better be going," said Marion Fay, who was also confused.
"So must I," said Hampstead. "I have to return round by London, and have ever so many things to do in Park Lane. The worst of having two or three houses is that one never knows where one's clothes are. Good-bye, Mrs. Roden. Mind, I depend upon you, and that I have set my heart upon it. You will let me walk with you as far as your door, Miss Fay?"
"It is only three doors off," said Marion, "and in the other direction." Nevertheless he did go with her to the house, though it was only three doors off. "Tell your father, with my compliments," he said, "that George Roden can show you the way over. If you can get a cab to bring you across I will send you back in the waggonette. For the matter of that, there is no reason on earth why it should not be sent for you."
"Oh, no, my lord. That is, I do not think it possible that we should come."
"Pray do, pray do, pray do," he said, as he took her hand when the door at No. 17 was opened. As he walked down the street he saw the figure still standing at the parlour window of No. 10.
On the same evening Clara Demijohn was closeted with Mrs. Duffer at her lodgings at No. 15. "Standing in the street, squeezing her hand!" said Mrs. Duffer, as though the very hairs of her head were made to stand on end by the tidings,—the moral hairs, that is, of her moral head. Her head, in the flesh, was ornamented by a front which must have prevented the actual standing on end of any hair that was left to her.
"I saw it! They came out together from No. 11 as loving as could be, and he walked up with her to their own house. Then he seized her hand and held it,—oh, for minutes!—in the street. There is nothing those Quaker girls won't allow themselves. They are so free with their Christian names, that, of course, they get into intimacies instantly. I never allow a young man to call me Clara without leave asked and given."