Miss Damer"s brown eyes grew quite circular with surprise.

"Do you mean to tell me," she asked incredulously, "that d.i.c.ky never informed you that he was engaged?"

"No. You see," I pointed out, anxious to clear my friend of all appearance of lukewarmness as a lover, "I only met him the other day for the first time in fifteen years, and we naturally had a good deal to tell one another; and so, as it happened--that is--" I tailed off miserably under Miss Damer"s implacable eye.

"You are his greatest friend, aren"t you?" she enquired.

On reflection I agreed that this was so, although I had never seriously considered the matter before. Women have a curious habit of cataloguing their friends into a sort of order of merit--"My greatest friend, my greatest friend but six," and so on. The more sensitive male shrinks from such an invidious undertaking. d.i.c.ky and I had corresponded with one another with comparative regularity ever since our University days; and when two Englishmen, one hopelessly casual and the other entirely immersed in his profession, achieve this feat, I suppose they rather lay themselves open to accusations of this sort.

"And he never told you he was engaged?"

I shook my head apologetically.

"Ah, well," said Miss Damer charitably, "I dare say he would have remembered later. One can"t think of everything in a single conversation, can one?" she added with an indulgent smile.

I was still pondering a suitable and sprightly defence of masculine reserve where the heart is concerned, when the carriage swung round through lodge-gates, and the gravel of the drive crunched beneath our wheels.

"I hope the old Freak and his girl will be very happy together," I said, rather impulsively for me. "He deserves a real prize."

"You are right," said Miss Damer, "he does."

My heart warmed to this little lady. She knew a good man when she saw one.

"Have they been engaged long?" I asked.

"About a month."

"Where did he come across her?"

"He did not come across her," replied Miss Damer with gentle reproof, as a Mother Superior to a novice. "They were brought together."

"That means," I said, "that it is what is called an entirely suitable match?"

Miss Damer nodded her small wise head.

"From a parental point of view," I added.

"From Lady Adela"s point of view," corrected Miss Damer. "Mr.

Mainwaring, poor old dear, has not got one."

"But what about The Freak"s point of view?" I enquired.

"I can hear you quite well in your ordinary tone of voice," Miss Damer a.s.sured me.

I apologised, and repeated the question.

The girl considered. Obviously, it was a delicate subject.

"He seems quite content," she said at last. "But then, he never could bear to disappoint any one who had taken the trouble to make arrangements for his happiness."

"Would you mind telling me," I said, "without any mental reservation whatsoever, whether you consider that this engagement is the right one for him?"

Miss Damer"s eyes met mine with perfect frankness.

"No," she said, "I don"t. What is more, the engagement is beginning to wear rather thin. In fact,"--her eyes twinkled,--"I believe that Lady Adela is thinking of calling out her First Reserve."

"You mean--"

"I mean," said Miss Damer, "that Lady Adela is thinking of calling out her First Reserve."

A natural but most impertinent query sprang to my lips, to be stifled just in time.

"You were going to say?" enquired Miss Damer.

"I was going to say what a pretty carriage drive this is," I replied rapidly. "You will be glad of a cup of tea, though?"

"Yes, indeed," replied my companion brightly; but her att.i.tude said "Coward!" as plainly as could be.

Still, there are some questions which one can hardly ask a lady after an acquaintance of only ten minutes.

"There is the house," continued Miss Damer, as our conveyance weathered a great clump of rhododendrons. "Are n"t you glad that this long and dusty journey is over?"

"Not _now_!" I replied.

My little preceptress turned and bestowed on me a beaming smile.

"That is _much_ better!" she remarked approvingly.

CHAPTER V

VERY ODIOUS

I

We found the house-party at tea in the hall of The Towers. The Mainwaring parents proved to be a little old gentleman, with grey side-whiskers and a subdued manner, and an imposing matron of fifty, who deliberately filled the teapot to the brim with lukewarm water upon our approach and then gave me two fingers to shake. To Miss Damer was accorded a "Constance--dear child!" and a cold peck upon the right cheek.

After that I was introduced to d.i.c.ky"s sister Sylvia--a tall and picturesque young woman, dressed in black velvet with a lace collar.

She wore the air of a tragedy queen--not, it struck me, because she felt like a tragedy queen, but because she considered that the pose suited her.

The party was completed by a subaltern named Crick--a jovial youth with a _penchant_ for comic songs, obviously attached to the person of Miss Sylvia Mainwaring--and of course, The Freak"s lady-love, Miss Hilda Beverley, to whom I was shortly presented.

I am afraid our conversation was not a conspicuous success. Miss Beverley was tall, handsome, patrician, and cultivated, obviously well-off and an admirable talker. Still, it takes two to make a dialogue, and when one"s own contributions to the same, however unprovocative, are taken up _seriatim_, a.n.a.lysed, turned inside out, and set aside with an amused smile by a lady who evidently regards a conversation with one of her _fiance"s_ former a.s.sociates as a chastening but beneficial form of intellectual discipline, a man may be excused for not sparkling.

Half an hour later, perspiring gently, I was rescued by The Freak and conducted to the smoking-room.