The first news he heard after his return to town was of Lesbia's engagement, which was common talk at the clubs. The visitors at Rood Hall had come back to London full of the event, and were proud of giving a detailed account of the affair to outsiders.
They all talked patronisingly of Smithson, and seemed to think it rather a wonderful fact that he did not drop his aspirates or eat peas with a knife.
'A man of stirling metal,' said the gossips, 'who can hold his own with many a fellow born in the purple.'
Maulevrier called in Arlington Street, but Lady Kirkbank and her protégée were out; and it was at a cricket match at the Orleans Club that the brother and sister met for the first time after Lord Hartfield's wedding, which by this time had been in all the papers; a very simple announcement:
'On the 29th inst., at Grasmere, by the Reverend Douglass Brooke, the Earl of Hartfield to Mary, younger daughter of the ninth Earl of Maulevrier.'
Lesbia was the centre of a rather noisy little court, in which Mr. Smithson was conspicuous by his superior reserve.
He did not exert himself as a lover, paid no compliments, was not sentimental. The pearl was won, and he wore it very quietly; but wherever Lesbia went he went; she was hardly ever out of his sight.
Maulevrier received the coolest possible greeting. Lesbia turned pale with anger at sight of him, for his presence reminded her of the most humiliating passage in her life; but the big red satin sunshade concealed that pale angry look, and nothing in Lesbia's manner betrayed emotion.
'Where have you been hiding yourself all this time, and why were you not at Henley?' she asked.
'I have been at Grasmere.'