Belle hung her head, and the meal ended in silence. After luncheon came dressing, and then the drive to Twickenham, with Major Bree in attendance. Christabel told him of her success as they drove through the Park to Kensington.
"I have the pleasure to invite you to a seat in my box at the Kaleidoscope this evening," she said.
"What box?"
"A box which Jessie and I secured this morning, before you had finished your breakfast."
"A box for this evening?"
"For this evening."
"I wonder you care to go to a theatre without Hamleigh."
"It is very cruel of you to say that!" exclaimed Christabel, her eyes brightening with girlish tears, which her pride checked before they could fall. "You ought to know that I am wretched without him—and that I want to lose the sense of my misery in dreamland. The theatre for me is what opium was for Coleridge and De Quincey."
"I understand," said Major Bree; "'you are not merry, but you do beguile the thing you are by seeming otherwise.'"
"You will go with us?"