Sunday afternoon, then," said Alexander, as she rose to join her
hostess. "How early may I come?"

She gave him her hand and flushed and laughed. He bent over it a little
stiffly. She went away on Lady Walford's arm, and as he stood watching
her yellow train glide down the long floor he looked rather sullen. He
felt that he had not come out of it very brilliantly.

CHAPTER IV

On Sunday afternoon Alexander remembered Miss Burgoyne's invitation and
called at her apartment. He found it a delightful little place and he
met charming people there. Hilda lived alone, attended by a very pretty
and competent French servant who answered the door and brought in the
tea. Alexander arrived early, and some twenty-odd people dropped in
during the course of the afternoon. Hugh MacConnell came with his
sister, and stood about, managing his tea-cup awkwardly and watching
every one out of his deep-set, faded eyes. He seemed to have made a
resolute effort at tidiness of attire, and his sister, a robust, florid
woman with a splendid joviality about her, kept eyeing his freshly
creased clothes apprehensively. It was not very long, indeed, before his
coat hung with a discouraged sag from his gaunt shoulders and his hair
and beard were rumpled as if he had been out in a gale. His dry
humor went under a cloud of absent-minded kindliness which, Mainhall
explained, always overtook him here. He was never so witty or so sharp
here as elsewhere, and Alexander thought he behaved as if he were an
elderly relative come in to a young girl's party.

The editor of a monthly review came with his wife, and Lady Kildare,
the Irish philanthropist, brought her young nephew, Robert Owen, who had
come up from Oxford, and who was visibly excited and gratified by his
first introduction to Miss Burgoyne. Hilda was very nice to him, and he
sat on the edge of his chair, flushed with his conversational efforts
and moving his chin about nervously over his high collar. Sarah Frost,
the novelist, came with her husband, a very genial and placid old
scholar who had become slightly deranged upon the subject of the fourth
dimension. On other matters he was perfectly rational and he was easy
and pleasing in conversation. He looked very much like Agassiz, and
his wife, in her old-fashioned black silk dress, overskirted and
tight-sleeved, reminded Alexander of the early pictures of Mrs.
Browning. Hilda seemed particularly fond of this quaint couple, and
Bartley himse