Madeleine had not remembered to be good-natured until a certain obstacle to the completion of her ball-party, as she intended it, had arisen. The subject of young men was one which she had approached with the utmost delicacy; for, according to Sir Henry, all young men—at least, all good-looking ones—were fools and oafs whom he was not going to have wounding his birds. She agreed with him entirely, but reminded him of the duchess's solemn injunction to bring a party of even numbers.
Sir Henry at last gave in so far as to propose an elderly colonel. Madeleine in turn suggested Lord Hemsworth, who was allowed to be "a good sort," and was invited.
"Then we ought to have Miss Di Tempest, if we have Hemsworth," said Sir Henry, blowing like a grampus, as his manner was in moments of inspiration. "I'm quite a matchmaker now I'm married myself. Ask her to meet him, Maddy. She's your special pal, ain't she?"
Madeleine felt that she required strength greater than her own to bear with a person who says "ain't" and "a good sort," and designates a lady-friend as a "pal."
She pressed the silver knob of her pencil to her lips. There was, she remarked, no one whom she would like to have so much as Di; but Mr. Lumley was her next suggestion, and Sir Henry slapped himself on the leg, and said he was the very thing.
"We want one other man," said Madeleine, reflectively, after a few more had passed through the needle's eye of Sir Henry's criticism. "Let me see. Oh, there's Captain Tempest. He dances well."
"I won't have him," said Sir Henry at once, his eyes assuming their most prawnlike expression. "You may have his cousin if you like, the owl with the jowl, as Lumley calls him—Tempest of Overleigh."
"He is sure to be asked to the house itself, being a relation," said Madeleine, dropping the subject of Archie instantly. She did not recur to it again. But after their return home from the visit to the Hemsworths', at which she had met Di, she told her husband she had invited Di for the fancy ball, as he had wished her to do.
"Me?" said Sir Henry, reddening. "Lord bless me, what do I want with her?" And it was some time before he could be made to recollect what he had said nearly a month ago about asking Di to meet Lord Hemsworth.
"You forget your own wishes more quickly than I do," she said, putting her hand in his.