"Well, it may teach Miss Castlemaine a lesson," said Sprague, whose pride had not yet recovered from the wound which her refusal had made; "but there—it's all right. It'll never come to anything. For that matter, if anything serious came of it, I would tell her the whole history of the joke."
"No, you wouldn't."
"Why?"
"Because you dare not. Because she would despise us all to our last day, because she would never speak to us again. You know the kind of girl she is."
Sprague was silent.
"Is it a dinner-party which Mr. Castlemaine is giving, or is Leicester invited in a friendly way, I wonder?" he said presently.
"Evidently a friendly invitation, seeing Mr. Castlemaine has written the letter with his own hand."
"Was it true that you told Mr. Castlemaine the truth about him?"
Purvis looked uncomfortable.
"Evidently he did not believe it," he replied, after hesitating a few seconds. "You know Leicester's way. When you look into those wonderful eyes of his you cannot tell whether he's joking or whether he's in earnest. Besides, he's such a handsome, fascinating chap, and I saw that Mr. Castlemaine took to him. Then, although it is perfectly true that he talked in his usual mocking way during a part of the evening, he altered his tone before he left. Evidently he found Miss Castlemaine to be a congenial companion, for he grew quite earnest in his conversation, and you know that when he is earnest, he is nothing short of brilliant. In fact, he showed us two Radford Leicesters that night: we had Leicester the cynic, but we had also Leicester the scholar, the brilliant conversationalist, the man who has read everything worth reading, and seen everything worth the seeing. No one could help noticing how Miss Castlemaine admired him."