"Dulcie," I said, when we were again alone, "I wish you hadn't accepted that invitation without first of all consulting me. I really am not keen to go."
"Oh, don't be silly!" she exclaimed joyously, and, putting her arms about my neck, she gave me three delicious kisses. "We have quarrelled all the afternoonyou were perfectly horrid to me, you know you wereand if we mope here together all the evening we shall most likely fall out again, and that will be absurd. Besides, I feel just in the humour for a jolly dinner party, and I'm sure any party given by Connie is bound to be jolly, just as jolly as she is. I do think she is such a fascinating person, don't you, Mike? Oh, I am sorry; I quite forget you don't like her."
"I have not said I don't like herI do like her, Dulcie, in a sense, and up to a point. But I still hold to the opinion I formed of her when I met her firstI wouldn't trust her implicitly."
"Never mind, Mike," she cried in high spirits. "We'll set all your prejudices aside to-night, and try to enjoy ourselves. I wonder who'll be there. I quite forgot to ask her."
"Probably nobody you know, or she would have told you. She said 'friends from town,' so there are not likely to be any of our friends from about here. We ought to start soon after seven, as she said dinner would be at eight; with the snow as thick as it is it may take us quite an hour to get to Newburytwelve miles, remember."
We were the last to arrive, and I confess that the moment we were shown into the room and I realized who Mrs. Stapleton's other guests were I mentally upbraided myself for having come, or rather, for having let Dulcie come. The first to whom our hostess introduced Dulcie was "Mrs. Gastrell," and directly afterwards she presented to Dulcie "Mrs. Gastrell's cousin," as she called himnone other than Hugesson Gastrell, who was standing by. To my surprise Easterton and Jack Osborne were there, and the widow seemed pleased at finding that I knew themI guessed it was owing to Easterton's being there that Jasmine Gastrell was made to pass as Gastrell's cousin.
With singular formality she made Dulcie and me acquainted with everybody, which struck me as odd in these days when introductions at dinner parties, receptions and balls have gone quite out of fashion.
"Mr. Berrington," Mrs. Stapleton said, taking me across the room to two men engaged apparently in earnest conversation, "I want to make you and Lord Cranmere and Mr. Wollaston known to one another," and, interrupting them, she introduced us.
There was nothing striking about the Earl of Cranmere. A man past middle age, he had, I thought a rather weak face. A small, fair beard, neatly trimmed and pointed, concealed his chin: as I looked at him I wondered whether, were that beard removed, I should see any chin at all. The short upper lip was hidden by a fair moustache; he had also whiskers. The fair hair, which was rather thin on the top, was carefully parted in the middle, and plastered down on both sides. His complexion was clear, the complexion of a man who lives a good deal in the open, and his eyes were pale blue, with almost golden lashes and eye-brows. He inclined to stoutness, and spoke with a slight lisp. This then was the man, or rather one of the men, I thought, as I noted these points about him while we exchanged remarks, concerning whom Jack Osborne had been so mysteriously questioned while he lay bound upon the bed in that dark room in Grafton Street. I knew Lord Cranmere to be a particular friend of Jack's, though in appearance no two men could have presented a greater contrast.
What mostly kept my thoughts busy, however, was the presence of Hugesson Gastrell.