CHAPTER XIV
The Sunday afternoon on which the Honourable Mrs. Keeley gave her first reception, that season, was a singularly dull and sultry one. The room was filled with celebrities and their satellites; and Katharine's head was aching badly, as she struggled with difficulty through the crowd and managed to squeeze herself into a corner by the open window. She was always affected by the weather; and to-day, she felt unusually depressed by the absence of sunshine. A voice from the balcony uttered her name, and she turned round with a sigh, to be met by the complacent features of Laurence Heaton. For a moment she did not recognise him; and then, the sound of his voice carried her back to Ivingdon, and she smiled back at him for the sake of the associations he brought to her mind.
"Is it really two years?" he was saying. "Seems impossible when I look at your face, Miss Austen. Two years! And what have you been doing with yourself all this time, eh? And how do you contrive to look so fresh on a day like this? I am quite charmed to have this opportunity of renewing so pleasant an acquaintance."
He forgot that, when he had known her before, she had annoyed him by not being in his style. And Katharine answered him vaguely, while her eyes wandered over the crowd of faces; for Paul had told her he was going to be there, and she felt restless.
"Small place the world is, to be sure," continued Heaton, with the air of a man who says something that has not been said before. "Who would have expected you to turn up at my old friends', the Keeleys'? Most curious coincidence, I must say!" Katharine, who knew of his very recent introduction to the house, explained her own relationship demurely. But her companion was quite unabashed, and changed the conversation skilfully.
"Wilton often comes here, he tells me. You remember Wilton, don't you? Ah, of course you do, since it is to him that I owe your charming acquaintance," he said, gallantly. "He met them at Nice, or somewhere. Astonishing how many people one meets at Nice! Wilton always meets every one, though, and every one likes him; he's so brilliant, don't you think? Yes, brilliant exactly describes him. Ever seen him since he stayed in your delightful rural home?"
"Oh, I see him here sometimes. And my aunt is expecting him to-day, I believe."
"I have no doubt of it, no doubt of it whatever!" smiled Heaton, nodding his head wisely. "If I'm not very much mistaken, Wilton is often the guest of Mrs. Keeley, is he not?"
The meaning in his remarks was wasted on Katharine, for most of her attention was still concentrated on the doorway. But Heaton, to whom she was more of an excuse than a reason for conversation, rambled on contentedly.
"Nice fellow, Wilton, to bring me here, pretending he wanted me to know her! Not much chance of that, I fancy! I haven't had two words with her since I first called here with him, three weeks ago. Ah, well, I mustn't be surprised at that,—an old fellow like me; though I would have you know, Miss Austen, that I am still young enough to admire the charms of a beautiful woman! But it is amusing, all the same, to watch how a serious fellow like Wilton suddenly forgets all his prejudices against marriage, and behaves like every one else. If it had been me, now—but then, I'm a marrying man, and I've had two of the sweetest wives God ever gave to erring man— Ah, I beg your pardon?"