“Hugh ought to marry,” Mrs. Grenfell observed.
“Why did he come back?” inquired another who had just returned from a prolonged residence abroad. “Was there a woman in the case?”
“Put it in the plural, and you'll be nearer right,” laughed Mrs. Grenfell, and added to Honora, “You'd best take care, my dear, he's dangerous.”
Honora seemed to be looking down on them from a great height, and to Reginald Farwell alone is due the discovery of this altitude; his reputation for astuteness, after that evening, was secure. He had sat next her, and had merely put two and two together—an operation that is probably at the root of most prophecies. More than once that summer Mr. Farwell had taken sketches down Honora's lane, for she was on what was known as his list of advisers: a sheepfold of ewes, some one had called it, and he was always piqued when one of them went astray. In addition to this, intuition told him that he had taken the name of a deity in vain—and that deity was Chiltern. These reflections resulted in another after-dinner conversation to which we are not supposed to listen.
He found Jerry Shorter in a receptive mood, and drew him into Cecil Grainger's study, where this latter gentleman, when awake, carried on his lifework of keeping a record of prize winners.
“I believe there is something between Mrs. Spence and Hugh Chiltern, after all, Jerry,” he said.
“By jinks, you don't say so!” exclaimed Mr. Shorter, who had a profound respect for his friend's diagnoses in these matters. “She was dazzling to-night, and her eyes were like stars. I passed her in the hall just now, and I might as well have been in Halifax.”
“She fairly withered me when I made a little fun of Chiltern,” declared Farwell.
“I tell you what it is, Reggie,” remarked Mr. Shorter, with more frankness than tact, “you could talk architecture with 'em from now to Christmas, and nothing'd happen, but it would take an iceberg to write a book with Hugh and see him alone six days out of seven. Chiltern knocks women into a cocked hat. I've seen 'em stark raving crazy. Why, there was that Mrs. Slicer six or seven years ago—you remember—that Cecil Grainger had such a deuce of a time with. And there was Mrs. Dutton—I was a committee to see her, when the old General was alive,—to say nothing about a good many women you and I know.”
Mr. Farwell nodded.