quality of his work, which was quietly artistic and
psychological, whatever liveliness of incident it uttered on the
surface. He belonged to the good school which is of no fashion and of
every time, far both from actuality and unreality; and his recognition
came from people whose recognition was worth having. With this came
the wider notice which was not worth having, like the notice of Mrs.
Westangle, since so well known to society reporters as a society woman,
which could not be called recognition of him, because it did not involve
any knowledge of his book, not even its title. She did not read any sort
of books, and she assimilated him by a sort of atmospheric sense. She
was sure of nothing but the attention paid him in a certain very
goodish house, by people whom she heard talking in unintelligible but
unmistakable praise, when she said, casually, with a liquid glitter
of her sweet, small eyes, "I wish you would come down to my place, Mr.
Verrian. I'm asking a few young people for Christmas week. Will you?"

"Why, thank you--thank you very much," Verrian said, waiting to hear
more in explanation of the hospitality launched at him. He had never
seen Mrs. Westangle till then, or heard of her, and he had not the least
notion where she lived. But she seemed to have social authority, though
Verrian, in looking round at his hostess and her daughter, who stood
near, letting people take leave, learned nothing from their common
smile. Mrs. Westangle had glided close to him, in the way she had of
getting very near without apparently having advanced by steps, and she
stood gleaming and twittering up at him.

"I shall send you a little note; I won't let you forget," she said. Then
she suddenly shook hands with the ladies of the house and was flashingly
gone.

Verrian thought he might ask the daughter of the house, "And if I don't
forget, am I engaged to spend Christmas week with her?"

The girl laughed. "If she doesn't forget, you are. But you'll have a
good time. She'll know how to manage that." Other guests kept coming up
to take leave, and Verrian, who did not want to go just yet, was retired
to the background, where the girl's voice, thrown over her shoulder at
him, reached him in the words, as gay as if they were the best of the
joke, "It's on the Sound."

The inference was that Mrs. Westangle's place was on the Sound; and
that was all Verrian knew about it till he got her little note. Mrs.
Westangle knew how to writ