"Yes; indeed. Things kept me in town."
"We had some uncommonly good runs."
"Have the horses stood pretty well?" asked Gerard.
"I felt uncommonly tempted to borrow yours; and should have done so once or twice if I hadn't known that I should have been betrayed."
"I wish you had, with all my heart," said Gerard. And then they went to dress for dinner.
In the evening, when the ladies had gone to bed, Lord Chiltern took his friend off to the smoking-room. At Harrington Hall it was not unusual for the ladies and gentlemen to descend together into the very comfortable Pandemonium which was so called, when,—as was the case at present,—the terms of intimacy between them were sufficient to warrant such a proceeding. But on this occasion Lady Chiltern went very discreetly upstairs, and Adelaide, with equal discretion, followed her. It had been arranged beforehand that Lord Chiltern should say a salutary word or two to the young man. Maule began about the hunting, asking questions about this and that, but his host stopped him at once. Lord Chiltern, when he had a task on hand, was always inclined to get through it at once,—perhaps with an energy that was too sudden in its effects. "Maule," he said, "you ought to make up your mind what you mean to do about that girl."
"Do about her! How?"
"You and she are engaged, I suppose?"
"Of course we are. There isn't any doubt about it."
"Just so. But when things come to be like that, all delays are good fun to the man, but they're the very devil to the girl."