'And was it pleasant at the Chadwicks'? You need not start; I don't pretend to any powers of divination,' she said, with a short laugh. 'Mr. Chadwick called in to see my husband at breakfast this morning, and told us you had been dining there.'
'O yes, it was very pleasant,' said Spiridion, on whose cheeks the flush seemed permanently fixed. 'Mr. Chadwick, you know, always gives such excellent dinners.'
'And has such pleasant guests. Had you any ladies present?'
'Only the ladies of the family.'
'Ladies of the family,' repeated Mrs. Hamblin. 'I did not know that there was any one except Mrs. Chadwick.'
'O yes, her sister, Miss Eleanor Irvine, was present,' said Spiridion, who began to see plainly that his recent determination had not been taken at all too soon, and to wonder whether he should have pluck enough to carry it out.
'Mrs. Chadwick's sister,' said Mrs. Hamblin. 'O yes, I remember; rather a pretty person--pink and white, is she not? I cannot imagine where I have seen her, for she doesn't go out, I believe.'
'She is in mourning for her father, who is recently dead,' explained Spiridion.
'And yet if this young lady is Mrs. Chadwick's sister, Mrs. Chadwick's father must be recently dead too,' said Mrs. Hamblin, looking straight at him. 'If there is any man in the world who knows what real romance is, or, at least, can pretend to know sufficiently to deceive others, it is you. Do you think this girl pretty?'
Two months since Spiridion Pratt would have vowed that he never thought about the girl at all, or, if the point were pressed to him, that he considered her downright ugly; but he had made up his mind now, and perceived that the time to strike had come.