"Farnham promised," I said, "to dine with me to-morrow night, you know. It is very much to be regretted that you have an engagement, but I hope that you will remind him of his to me."
"I will do so, certainly," Wildred returned. "Not that any reminder could be needed, for Farnham is one of your most enthusiastic admirers, I should say."
We were vastly polite to each other during what remained of the conversation, far more ceremoniously so than we should have been likely to be had there been any solid liking on either side under the thin veneer of friendliness.
In a few moments I had got away, despite Wildred's repeated request that I should remain and share his lonely Christmas dinner with him. Somehow, a mouthful of food taken in that house would have choked me, and I left with the echo of the awful cry I had heard still seemingly ringing in my ears.
I half expected that Farnham might look in upon me, as Wildred had suggested, and therefore spent what remained of the evening after my return to town at the hotel. But he did not come, and shortly after midnight I threw down the book in which I had been able to retain no great interest, and went to bed.
It was ridiculously early when I woke, and my first conscious thought was a joyous one, that now only one day intervened between me and the call I promised myself to make at Lady Tressidy's.
I had endeavoured to explain to my own satisfaction the presence of a portrait which I believed to represent Miss Cunningham at the House by the Lock. There were many ways in which it might have found a place there, without betokening any great intimacy between the original of the picture and Carson Wildred. It might have been an Academy success which he had purchased; it might be even that the resemblance was merely one of chance.
Still, try as I might to settle the doubts which, no matter how often discarded, invariably came crowding back to my brain, I was already far too deeply plunged into love to remember with calmness my glimpse of the canvas under the drapery.
Of course it would be impossible for me to refer to it in talking with Lady Tressidy or Miss Cunningham, if I were lucky enough to see them on Sunday; but in some indirect way I might be able to induce one of them to mention it. I could refer to my visit to the House by the Lock perhaps, touching lightly upon my impression of the striking decorations in the studio, or smoking-room, and then, if there were nothing to conceal, and Miss Cunningham were aware that Mr. Wildred possessed her portrait, it would be very natural that a word or two in regard to it might pass her lips.
As I was on my way down to breakfast a little after ten, I met one of the bell boys with a telegram, which he had been on the way to bring to my door.