"Ah! you seem to have forgotten him!" exclaimed Mr. Howe, with a great deal of gentlemanly distress. He had discontinued all manual connection with his blue glasses; he had even pressed both hands together, in a rotatory, nervous way, while he went on speaking. "I hope you did not mean to leave poor Bedlowe out," he proceeded, with quite a funereal pathos. "The poor fellow feels it dreadfully. I promised him I would say nothing about the matter, and yet (as you see) I have broken my promise."
"I think Mrs. Varick is sorry to see that you have broken your promise," said Kindelon, shortly and tepidly.
Mr. Howe glanced at Kindelon through his glasses. He was obliged to raise his head as he did so, on account of their differing statures.
"Kindelon!" he cried, in reproach, "I thought you were one of my friends."
"So I am," came Kindelon's reply, "and that is why I don't like the pietistic novelist, Bedlowe, who wrote 'The Christian Knight in Armor' and the 'Doubtful Soul Satisfied.'"
If there could be the ghost of a cough, Mr. Howe gave it. He again lifted his wan, lank hand toward his spectacles.
"Oh, Kindelon," he remonstrated, "you must not be as uncharitable as that. Bedlowe does the best he can—and really, between ourselves, his best is remarkably good. Think of his great popularity. Think of the way he appeals to the large masses. Think"—
But here Pauline broke in, with the merriest laugh that had left her lips that night.
"My dear Mr. Howe!" she exclaimed, "you forget that I heard a bitter wrangle between you and Mr. Bedlowe only a few days ago. You had a great many hard things to say of him then. I hope you have not so easily altered your convictions."
"I—I haven't altered my convictions at all," stammered Mr. Howe, quite miserably. "But between Bedlowe as a literary man, and—and Bedlowe as a social companion—I draw a very marked line."