"I'll go and see her this evening. To-day is Thursday, isn't it? She has one of her 'At home's' this evening."
Jack Price looked at the young man admiringly. "You're an uncommonly sensible fellow!" said he. "I give you my honour I never knew a fellow of your years take advice so well. By Jove! I wish I had had your common sense when I was your age. It's too late for me to do any good now, you know, what? And, in fact," (with a solemn lowering of his musical Irish voice) "I split myself on the very rock I'm now warning you off. I never was polite. And if any one told me to go to the right, sure it was a thousand to one that I'd instantly bolt to the left!" And shaking his head with a sad, regretful gesture, Jack Price parted from Algernon at the corner of the street.
Mrs. Machyn-Stubbs received the truant very graciously that evening. She knew that, during his absence from her parties, he had been admitted into society, to which even her fashionable self could not hope to penetrate. But, though this might be a reason for a little genteel sneering at him behind his back, it was none whatever, Mrs. Machyn-Stubbs considered, for giving him a cool reception when he did grace her house with his presence. She said to several of her guests, one after the other: "We have young Ancram Errington here to-night. He's so glad to come to us, poor fellow, for my people's place is his second home, down in the West of England. And, then, the Seelys think it nice of us to take notice of him, don't you know? He is a relation of Lady Seely's, and is quite in that set—the Dormers, and all those people. Ah! you don't know them? They say he is to marry Castalia Kilfinane. But we haven't spoken about it yet out of our own little circle. Her father was Viscount Kauldkail, and married Lord Seely's youngest sister," and so on, and so on with a set smile, and no expression whatever on her smooth, fair face.
To Algernon himself she showed herself politely inquisitive on the subject of his engagement to Castalia, and startled him considerably by saying, when she found herself close to him for a few minutes near a doorway:
"And are we really to congratulate you, Mr. Errington?"
"If you please, madam," answered Algernon, with a bright, amused smile and an easy bow, "but I should like to know—if it be not indiscreet—on what special subject? I am, indeed, to be congratulated on finding myself here. But, then, you are hardly likely to be the person to do it."
At that moment Algernon was wedged into a corner behind a fat old gentleman, who was vainly struggling to extricate himself from the crowd in front, by making a series of short plunges forward, the rebound of which sent him back on to Algernon's toes with some violence. It was very hot, and a young lady was singing out of tune in the adjoining room; her voice floating over the murmur of conversation occasionally, in a wailing long-drawn note. Altogether, it might have been suspected by some persons that Mr. Ancram Errington was laughing at his hostess, when he spoke of his position at that time as being one which called for congratulation. But Mrs. Machyn-Stubbs was the sort of woman who completely baffled irony by a serene incapability of perceiving it. And she would sooner suspect you of maligning her, hating her, or insulting her, than of laughing at her. To this immunity from all sense of the ridiculous she owed her chief social successes; for there are occasions when some obtuseness of the faculties is useful. Mrs. Machyn-Stubbs tapped Algernon's arm lightly with her fan, as she answered, "Now Mr. Errington, that's all very well with the outside world, but you shouldn't make mysteries with us! I look upon you almost as a brother of Orlando's, I do indeed."
"You're very kind, indeed, and I'm immensely obliged to you; but, upon my word, I don't know what you mean by my making mysteries!"
"Oh, well, if you choose to keep your own counsel, of course you can do so. I will say no more." Upon which Mrs. Machyn-Stubbs proceeded to say a great deal more, and ended by plainly giving Algernon to understand that the rumour of his engagement to Miss Castalia Kilfinane had been pretty widely circulated during the last four or five weeks.
"Oh, Mrs. Machyn-Stubbs," said Algernon, laughing, "you surely never believe more than a hundredth part of what you hear? There's Mr. Price looking for me. I promised to walk home with him, it is such a lovely night. Thank you, no; not any tea! Are you ever at home about four o'clock? I shall take my chance of finding you. Good night."