"Dear me! is he indeed? ah, that accounts for a flushed face--"
"Don't be absurd, Geoff! Shall I tell him to come here?"
"You may if you like; but don't come back with him, as I want five minutes' quiet talk with him."
So Mrs. Ludlow and her daughter left the studio, and in a few minutes Charley Potts arrived. As he walked up to Geoffrey and wrung his hand, both men seemed under some little constraint. Geoff spoke first.
"I'm glad you're here, Charley. I should have gone up to your place if you hadn't looked in to-day. I have something to tell you, and something to ask of you."
"Tell away, old boy; and as for the asking, look upon it as done,--unless it's tin, by the way; and there I'm no good just now."
"Charley, I'm going to be married next Thursday to Margaret Dacre--the girl we found fainting in the streets that night of the Titians."
Geoff expected some exclamation, but his friend only nodded his head.
"She has told me her whole life: insisted upon my hearing it before I said a word to her; made me wait a week after I had asked her to be my wife, on the chance that I should repent; behaved in the noblest way."
Geoffrey again paused, and Mr. Potts again nodded.