"I never saw you. I wondered you were not there."
Had the earth opened, I could not have felt more astounded, and had it opened near me I should possibly have sprung in in my confusion. I had, as usual, simply made a fool of myself, and what to do I scarcely knew. At this instant the hostess arose, and the dinner was over and with it I feared my chance was over too.
"Give me a moment. I must have one moment," I said as she passed me on her way out of the dining-room with the other ladies, her head held very high.
She inclined her head and said something in so low a tone that I did not catch it.
King James I. never detested tobacco as I did those cigars smoked that evening. When, at last, the host moved to return to the drawing-room, I bolted in only to be seized on by my hostess and presented to a middle-aged and waistless lady who wanted to ask me about the Pooles, whom she had heard I knew. She had heard that Lilian Poole had not married very happily. "Did I know?"
"No, I did not know," nor, in fact, did I care, though I could not say so. Then another question: "Could I tell why all the men appeared to find Miss Leigh so very attractive?" Yes, I thought I could tell that—"Because she is very attractive."
"Oh well, yes, I suppose she is—pretty and all that, with a sort of kitteny softness—but——"
"There is no 'but' about it," I interrupted brusquely—"she is just what you said—very attractive. For one thing, she has brains; for another, heart. Neither of them is so common as not to be attractive." I thought of the young tigress concealed in that "kitteny softness" of which the lady spoke, and was determined not to permit the sly cat to see what I really felt.
"Of course, you know that she is going to marry Mr. Canter? He is the best parti in town."
"Of course, I do not know anything of the kind," I said bowing. "Since I had the honor of sitting by her I am thinking of marrying her myself."