Mr. Wycherly wrinkled up his forehead in the greatest perplexity: "But I never go anywhere," he said again.
"And why not?" Miss Esperance asked boldly. "If it were almost anybody else, I would not press you, but they are so sensitive. If you don't go they will think it is because you are proud, and don't think them good enough."
"Me! Proud!" ejaculated poor Mr. Wycherly. "But this is dreadful."
"They stopped us one day," remarked the pen-sucking Montagu, "and asked if you were not very stand-off, and Edmund said it was bosh, and you were nothing of the sort, and that if they just came and played handy-pandy with you, they'd soon see."
"Well," said Miss Esperance, tapping the letter, "what am I to say?"
"O, say Guardie's much obliged and he'll be very pleased to come, and that we'll be very pleased to come, too," suggested Montagu, who appreciated tea at the Misses Moffat's.
"I did not ask you, Montagu," Miss Esperance remarked with dignity. "Well, dear friend, may I say you will go with me?"
"Do you wish me to go, Miss Esperance?" groaned Mr. Wycherly.
"I don't wish you to do anything intensely disagreeable to yourself, but, if you did go, it would assuredly give great pleasure to them—and to me——"
"Then I will go," said Mr. Wycherly; and he said it with all the resolution of a man determined to do or die.