"And the Marchese?"
"He'll very likely be there also." she replied, coldly.
Whereupon he took his leave, and determined, privately in his own mind, that he also would be at the Exhibition, and would speak to Carmela on the subject nearest his heart.
"I'm madly in love with her," he told Pat, as they went down the street, "you don't know how much."
"Oh, begad I do," retorted Pat, "haven't I got a heart and a girl of my own? I wonder what Lester père is like."
"If he's as nice as Lester fille, it will be all right," laughed Ronald, and they went along to the Temple, as Monteith wanted to introduce Pat to Foster.
This being accomplished, they all went home to dress for dinner, and Sir Mark also turning up, they had a pleasant meal about seven o'clock, and, as all the party suited one another, they became quite jolly. The baronet soon showed himself to be a capital companion; a little cold, perhaps, but with lots of appreciation of fun, and as for Foster, he kept them all amused by his stories and jokes. Pat was in his best form, and the champagne only made him more exuberant in spirits, while Ronald, forgetting all his love and detective work for the moment, was gay as any of them. After dinner they all went to the Frivolity, and arrived just as the curtain was rising on the new burlesque.
The theatre was crowded, as the Frivolity invariably was, and Ronald saw, with some amusement, that the celebrated masher brigade, of whom he had heard so much, was in full force in the stalls. They looked like rows of waxworks with their immovable faces and phlegmatic manners.
"They look as if they ought to be wound up like clockwork," remarked Pat, gaily.
"Oh, they only keep going on tick, if that's what you mean," said Foster, laughing.