He raised his eyebrows. “Indeed? He only landed on Monday, or so I was informed to the point of exhaustion to-night. It seemed to be generally understood that the fact was interesting. I’m sorry it failed to thrill me. Yet you have met him, you say?”
“I knew him five years ago, before he left England.”
“Really? This interests me,” he turned his face towards her. “I always understood that your distinguished friends in those days were not numerous. Were you at Rilchester? Ah! I see. Yet I should hardly have thought that a man like Carey— Still—when the daughter is pretty—” He paused, smiling with half closed eyes.
Bridget flushed. The slow color began to mount in her cheeks; it spread to her neck. The man watched her carefully. His smile became a little more pronounced.
“I met Mr. Carey at a concert,” she said, and rose as she spoke, resting her elbow on the mantel-piece, and facing him. Her voice was still perfectly cool.
“And dispensed with the ceremony of an introduction?” He tapped the tips of his fingers together languidly in applause. “Charming! so idyllic, so natural. What a pity it is that so also do even the costers. Well? and then? Please go on, I’m really not in the least bored. That was not the extent of your acquaintance, of course?”
“No, I met him again,” she went on quietly, fixing her eyes on her husband’s face.
“By request, of course?”
“Yes, by request. It was through Mr. Carey that my stories were published.” She paused—“and through him therefore, indirectly, that I met you.”
He glanced sharply at her. “I owe Mr. Carey a thousand thanks,” he said, ironically. “To him, then, I—and the world—owe a great pleasure; I can’t conscientiously say a great literary pleasure, for from what I remember of them the stories were entirely free from any taint of literary quality whatever; but they were described, I think, as powerful and vital, full of human interest, weren’t they? It sounds a little exhausting. Power and vitality always strike me as exhausting, but then the masses have so much energy. It is Mr. Carey I must thank, then, for my wife? I have no adequate words to express my indebtedness.”