"When do you go down to Coryston?"
"Just before Whitsuntide."
He looked round with a smile, saw that Edward Newbury was still in the box, and whispered, mischievously:
"Hoddon Grey, too, I think, will not be empty?"
Marcia kept an indifferent face.
"I dare say. You're coming?" Sir Wilfrid nodded. "Oh, have you heard—?"
She murmured to him behind her fan. Sir Wilfrid knew all their history—had been her father's most intimate friend. She gave him a rapid account of Coryston's disinheriting. The old man rose, his humorous eyes suddenly grave.
"We'll talk of this—at Coryston. Ah, Newbury—I took your chair—I resign. Hullo, Lester—good evening. Heavens, there's the curtain going up. Good night!"
He hurried away. Newbury moved forward, his eager look on Marcia. But she turned, smiling, to the young librarian.
"You haven't seen this ballet, Mr. Lester?—Schumann's 'Carnival'? Oh, you mustn't stand so far back. We can make room, can't we?" She addressed Newbury, and before he knew what had happened, the chairs had been so manipulated that Lester sat between Marcia and Newbury, while Waggin had drawn back into the shadow. The eyes of Marcia's duenna twinkled. It pleased her that this magnificent young man, head, it was said, of the young High Church party, distinguished in many ways, and as good as he was handsome, was not to have too easy a game. Marcia had clearly lost her head a little at the Shrewsbury House ball; and was now trying to recover it.