he was to marry that beautiful girl; and yet his question made me

conscious of some discomposure--I hadn't intended to put this
before everything. He himself indeed ought gracefully to have done

so, and I remember thinking the whole man was in this assumption
that in expressing my sense of what he had won I had fixed my

thoughts on his "seat." We straightened the matter out, and he was
so much lighter in hand than I had lately seen him that his spirits

might well have been fed from a twofold source. He was so good as
to say that he hoped I should soon make the acquaintance of Miss

Anvoy, who, with her aunt, was presently coming up to town. Lady
Coxon, in the country, had been seriously unwell, and this had

delayed their arrival. I told him I had heard the marriage would
be a splendid one; on which, brightened and humanised by his luck,

he laughed and said "Do you mean for HER?" When I had again
explained what I meant he went on: "Oh she's an American, but

you'd scarcely know it; unless, perhaps," he added, "by her being
used to more money than most girls in England, even the daughters

of rich men. That wouldn't in the least do for a fellow like me,
you know, if it wasn't for the great liberality of her father. He

really has been most kind, and everything's quite satisfactory."
He added that his eldest brother had taken a tremendous fancy to

her and that during a recent visit at Coldfield she had nearly won
over Lady Maddock. I gathered from something he dropped later on

that the free-handed gentleman beyond the seas had not made a
settlement, but had given a handsome present and was apparently to

be looked to, across the water, for other favours. People are
simplified alike by great contentments and great yearnings, and,

whether or no it was Gravener's directness that begot my own, I
seem to recall that in some turn taken by our talk he almost

imposed it on me as an act of decorum to ask if Miss Anvoy had also
by chance expectations from her aunt. My enquiry drew out that

Lady Coxon, who was the oddest of women, would have in any
contingency to act under her late husband's will, which was odder

still, saddling her with a mass of queer obligations complicated
with queer loopholes. There were several dreary people, Coxon

cousins, old maids, to whom she would have more or less to
minister. Gravener laughed, without saying no, when I suggested

that the young lady might come in through a loophole; then
suddenly, as if he suspected my turning a lantern on him, he

declared quite dryly: "That's all rot--one's moved by other
springs!"

A fortnight later, at Lady Coxon's own house, I understood well
enough the springs one was moved by. Gravener had spoken of me

there as an old friend, and I received a graciousinvitation to
dine. The Knight's widow was again indisposed--she had succumbed

at the eleventh hour; so that I found Miss Anvoy bravely playing
hostess without even Gravener's help, since, to make matters worse,

he had just sent up word that the House, the insatiable House, with
which he supposed he had contracted for easier terms, positively

declined to release him. I was struck with the courage, the grace
and gaiety of the young lady left thus to handle the fauna and

flora of the Regent's Park. I did what I could to help her to
classify them, after I had recovered from the confusion of seeing

her slightly disconcerted at perceiving in the guest introduced by
her intended the gentleman with whom she had had that talk about

Frank Saltram. I had at this moment my first glimpse of the fact
that she was a person who could carry a responsibility; but I leave

the reader to judge of my sense of the aggravation, for either of
us, of such a burden, when I heard the servant announce Mrs.

Saltram. From what immediately passed between the two ladies I
gathered that the latter had been sent for post-haste to fill the

gap created by the absence of the mistress of the house. "Good!" I
remember crying, "she'll be put by ME;" and my apprehension was

promptly justified. Mrs. Saltram taken in to dinner, and taken in
as a consequence of an appeal to her amiability, was Mrs. Saltram

with a vengeance. I asked myself what Miss Anvoy meant by doing
such things, but the only answer I arrived at was that Gravener was

verily fortunate. She hadn't happened to tell him of her visit to
Upper Baker Street, but she'd certainly tell him to-morrow; not

indeed that this would make him like any better her having had the
innocence to invite such a person as Mrs. Saltram on such an

occasion. It could only strike me that I had never seen a young
woman put such ignorance into her cleverness, such freedom into her

modesty; this, I think, was when, after dinner, she said to me
frankly, with almost jubilant mirth: "Oh you don't admire Mrs.

Saltram?" Why should I? This was truly a young person without
guile. I had briefly to consider before I could reply that my

objection to the lady named was the objection often uttered about
people met at the social board--I knew all her stories. Then as

Miss Anvoy remained momentarily vague I added: "Those about her
husband."

"Oh yes, but there are some new ones."
"None for me. Ah novelty would be pleasant!"

"Doesn't it appear that of late he has been particularly horrid?"
"His fluctuations don't matter", I returned, "for at night all cats

are grey. You saw the shade of this one the night we waited for
him together. What will you have? He has no dignity."

Miss Anvoy, who had been introducing with her American
distinctness, looked encouragingly round at some of the

combinations she had risked. "It's too bad I can't see him."
"You mean Gravener won't let you?"

"I haven't asked him. He lets me do everything."
"But you know he knows him and wonders what some of us see in him."

"We haven't happened to talk of him," the girl said.
"Get him to take you some day out to see the Mulvilles."

"I thought Mr. Saltram had thrown the Mulvilles over."
"Utterly. But that won't prevent his being planted there again, to

bloom like a rose, within a month or two."
Miss Anvoy thought a moment. Then, "I should like to see them,"

she said with her fostering smile.
"They're tremendously worth it. You mustn't miss them."

"I'll make George take me," she went on as Mrs. Saltram came up to
interrupt us. She sniffed at this unfortunate as kindly as she had

smiled at me and, addressing the question to her, continued: "But
the chance of a lecture--one of the wonderful lectures? Isn't

there another course announced?"
"Another? There are about thirty!" I exclaimed, turning away and

feeling Mrs. Saltram's little eyes in my back. A few days after
this I heard that Gravener's marriage was near at hand--was settled

for Whitsuntide; but as no invitation had reached me I had my
doubts, and there presently came to me in fact the report of a

postponement. Something was the matter; what was the matter was
supposed to be that Lady Coxon was now critically ill. I had

called on her after my dinner in the Regent's Park, but I had
neither seen her nor seen Miss Anvoy. I forget to-day the exact

order in which, at this period, sundry incidents occurred and the
particular stage at which it suddenly struck me, making me catch my

breath a little, that the progression, the acceleration, was for
all the world that of fine drama. This was probably rather late in

the day, and the exact order doesn't signify. What had already
occurred was some accident determining a more patient wait. George

Gravener, whom I met again, in fact told me as much, but without
signs of perturbation. Lady Coxon had to be constantly attended

to, and there were other good reasons as well. Lady Coxon had to
be so constantly attended to that on the occasion of a second

attempt in the Regent's Park I equally failed to obtain a sight of
her niece. I judged it discreet in all the conditions not to make