due at the Lansdowne Gallery, where
Lord Rockminster was giving a dinner-party, as a preliminary to the
concert and crush that were to follow. And no sooner had he alighted
from his hansom, and entered the marble vestibule of the gallery, than
whom should he descry ascending the stairs in front of him but Mr.
Octavius Quirk.

"Lady Adela hasn't let the grass grow under her feet," he said to
himself. "Captured her first critic already!"

Lady Adela was at the head of the stairs receiving her brother's guests;
and the greeting that she accorded to Mr. Octavius Quirk was of a most
special and gracious kind. She was very complaisant to Lionel also, and
bade him go and see if the place they had given him at dinner was to his
liking. He took this as a kind of permission to choose what he wanted
(within discreet limits); and as he just then happened to meet Miss
Georgie Lestrange, he proposed to that smiling and ruddy-haired damsel
that they should go and examine for themselves--and perhaps alter the
dispositions a little. So they passed away through those brilliantly lit
galleries (which served as a picture-exhibition on week-days), and at
the farther end of the largest room they found the oblong dinner-table,
which was brilliant with flowers and fruit, with crystal and silver. Of
course Lionel and his companion had to be content with very modest
places, for this was a highly distinguished company which Lord
Rockminster had invited; but at all events they made sure they were to
sit together, and that arrangement seemed to be satisfactory to them
both.

This was rather a magnificent little banquet; and Lionel, looking down
the long, richly colored table, may once or twice have thought of the
quiet, small dining-room at Winstead (perhaps with the curtains still
undrawn, and the evening light shining blue in the panes), and of the
solitary guest whom he had left to talk to those good people; but
indeed he was not permitted much time for reverie, for the young lady
with the _pince-nez_ was a most lively chatterer; she knew everything
that was going on in London, and seemed to take a particularly active
interest therein. Among other solemn items of information which she
communicated to her companion, she mentioned that the issue of Lady
Adela's novel had been postponed.

"Yes, it's quite ready, you know," she continued, in her blithe,
discursive, happy-go-lucky fashion; "all quite ready; but she doesn't
want it to go before