A knock at the door, and Henry Wilding entered. Buckingham greeted him with a sudden excess of fervor which puzzled the young man.
"I was sorry to miss finding you," he began, and then checked himself. "Not so very sorry either, since fortune made me acquainted with—your cousin—and with Miss Vila," he added, after an embarrassed pause.
"I don't understand," said Wilding. "Have I missed a call from you?"
"Yes. I just came from your house. Your cousin at first thought you were at home. Now I think of it, she—"
"But I don't live at my cousin's," said Wilding.
"Where do you live, then?"
"Next door to her house."
"Oh! then she sent out for you. That explains it." And so Mr. Buckingham, intent on his own affairs, brushed away the duplicity of the fair hostess. "But I was very glad to hear a piece of news about you from her. Let me congratulate you. I did not know you were engaged." And he shook Wilding's hand warmly. He was not so generous at the moment as he appeared. In reality, he was shaking his own hand in anticipation. Wilding responded with a good-natured laugh.
"I have sometimes wondered, Mr. Buckingham," he said, "how you, who write stories of love and marriage, should remain unmarried."
"Let us put it the other way. How can I who am unmarried write such stories? In truth, I have a dim sense that persons like you, who know the matter by experience, must laugh inwardly at my innocent attempts at realistic treatment."