HOW SOME OLD FRIENDS REAPPEAR AGAIN; AND HOW SOME NEWS IS TOLD; AND HOW MAURICE MAKES ANOTHER EFFORT TO WIN HIS CASE.
"Just been to see her," says Mr. Gower, who has selected the snuggest chair in Margaret's drawing-room, and is now holding forth from its cushioned depths with a radiant smile upon his brow. "She's staying with the Tennants. They always had a hankering after Mrs. Bethune."
"Fancy Marian's being with anyone when Tessie is in town!" says Margaret. "Captain Marryatt, that is a wretchedly uncomfortable chair. Come and sit here."
"Oh, thanks! I'm all right," says Marryatt, who would have died rather than give up his present seat. It has a full command of the door. It is plain, indeed, to all present that he is expecting someone, and that someone Mrs. Chichester—his mistaken, if honest, infatuation for that lean young woman being still as ardent as of yore.
Minnie Hescott, who is talking to Tita, conceals a smile behind her fan.
"What! haven't you heard about her and Marian?" asks Gower, leaning towards his hostess. "Why, you must be out of the swim altogether not to have heard that. There's a split there. A regular cucumber coldness! They don't speak now."
"An exaggeration, surely," says Margaret. "I saw lady Rylton yesterday and—— How d'ye do, colonel Neilson?"
There is the faintest blush on Margaret's cheek as she rises to receive her warrior.
"I hardly expected you to-day; I thought you were going down to
Twickenham."
"What an awful story!" says Gower, letting her hear his whisper under pretence of picking up her handkerchief.