What does my father do for his
Club?"

"Smokes with the men, sometimes, I believe. You couldn't do that, you
know----"

"Although----" and then Lesley stopped short and laughed.

"Although Aunt Sophy does. It's no secret, my dear Miss Brooke. Half the
women in London smoke now-a-days, I believe. Even my sister indulges now
and then."

Lesley gave her head a little toss. "What else does my father do?" she
asked.

"Sings to them. Sunday afternoon, that is, you know. The wives are
allowed to come to the Club-room then, and he has a sort of little
concert for them--good music, sacred music, even, I believe. He gets
professionals to come now and then; they will do anything to oblige your
father, you know--and when they don't come, he sings himself. He really
has a very good bass voice."

"Ladies don't sing, I suppose," said Lesley, after a little pause.

"Oh, yes, they do. He nearly always has a lady to sing. Why don't you go
down on a Sunday afternoon? The club is open to friends of the founder,
if not of the members, on Sunday afternoons. Don't Mr. Brooke and Miss
Brooke always go?"

"I suppose they do--I never asked where they went," said Lesley, with
burning cheeks. She remembered that they always did disappear on Sunday
afternoons. No, she had not asked; she had not hitherto felt any
curiosity as to their doings; and they had not asked her to accompany
them. She began to resent their lack of readiness to invite her to the
club.

"You might go down on Sunday afternoon," said Oliver, lazily. "I'm
going: they have asked me to sing. Though you mayn't know it, Miss
Brooke, I have a very decent tenor voice. Ethel is going with me. Won't
you come?"

"I don't know," said Lesley, nervously. She bethought herself that she
could not easily propose to accompany her father, and that Ethel and
Oliver Trent would not want her. She would be one too many in either
party. She could not go.

But Oliver read the reason of her scruples. "If you will allow me," he
said, "I will ask my sister to come too. Then we shall be a compact
little party of four, and we can start off without telling Mr. Brooke
anything about it."

Lesley hesitated a little, but finally consented. She had a great desire
to see what was going on in Macclesfield Buildings. But Oliver, it may
be feared, believed in his heart that she went because he was going. And
he resolved to bestow his society on her rather than on Ethel and Mrs.
Romaine on Sunday. I