'How absurd you are!' he said. 'I merely ran in to ask if a lace handkerchief I found last night belonged to Miss Gilholme.'
He began to fumble in his pockets without any great design of finding the handkerchief. Mrs. Wylie spared him the trouble of going farther.'
'Bring it another time,' she said.
She knew the handkerchief trick well. It is very simple, my brother: pick up a lace trifle anywhere about the ballroom, and with a slight draft upon your imagination, you have a graceful excuse to call at any house you may desire the next afternoon. If there is not one to be found, one can easily buy such a thing, and it serves for years. No young man is complete without it.
For some minutes William Hicks talked airily about the soirée of the Ancient Artists, throwing in here and there, in his pleasant way, a blast upon his individual instrument, of which the note was wearily familiar to his listener.
At last, however, he let fall an observation which made Mrs. Wylie forgive him, 'à un coup,' his early call.
'I met,' he said casually, 'that fellow ... Huston this morning.'
Mrs. Wylie laid aside the paper-knife with which she had been trifling. The action scarce required a moment of time, but in that moment she had collected her faculties, and was ready for him with all the alertness of her sex.
'Ah! What news had he?' she inquired suavely.
'Oh, nothing much. We scarcely spoke—indeed, I don't believe he recognised me at first.'