"Oh!" exclaimed the lady, "a fiançailles?"
"Yes."
The two had wandered slowly along, out of the Bosquet towards the canals.
"They make a great deal of these functions in France," Mrs. Falconer said.
Her companion agreed. "They made a great deal, rather more than usual, out of this one." And his tone was so suggestive that his companion looked up at him quickly.
"Who are your mysterious lovers?" she asked, "are they French? Do I know them?"
"They are not in the least mysterious," Bulstrode assured her. "I never saw anything less complex and more simple. They are Americans."
She seemed now to understand that she was to hear of "one of Jimmy's adventures," as she called his dashes in other people's affairs.
"I hope, Jimmy, in this case, that you have pulled the affair off to your credit, and that if you have made a match the creatures will be grateful to you for once! And, by the way," she bethought; "whatever has happened to the pretty girl whom you were quixotic enough to think you had to marry?"
"The last time I saw her she appeared to be in the best of circumstances," Bulstrode answered cheerfully. "In point of fact—it was, singularly enough, to her engagement party that I went to-day!"