of those families that have worked down so far
you can't find where they went in?"--that was the phrase in which he
recognised the truth of the girl's grope. Delia's fixed eyes assented,
and after a moment of cogitation George Flack broke out: "That's the
kind of family we want to handle!"

"Well, perhaps they won't want to be handled," Delia had returned with
a still wilder and more remarkable play of inspiration. "You had better
find out," she had added.

The chance to find out might have seemed to present itself after Mr.
Probert had walked in that confiding way into the hotel; for his
arrival had been followed a quarter of an hour later by that of the
representative of the Reverberator. Gaston had liked the way they
treated him--though demonstrative it was not artificial. Mr. Dosson
had said they had been hoping he would come round again, and Delia had
remarked that she supposed he had had quite a journey--Paris was so
big; and had urged his acceptance of a glass of wine or a cup of tea.
Mentioning that that wasn't the place where they usually received--she
liked to hear herself talk of "receiving"--she led the party up to her
white-and-gold saloon, where they should be so much more private: she
liked also to hear herself talk of privacy. They sat on the red silk
chairs and she hoped Mr. Probert would at least taste a sugared chestnut
or a chocolate; and when he declined, pleading the imminence of the
dinner-hour, she sighed: "Well, I suppose you're so used to them--to the
best--living so long over here." The allusion to the dinner-hour led
Mr. Dosson to the frank hope that he would go round and dine with them
without ceremony; they were expecting a friend--he generally settled it
for them--who was coming to take them round.

"And then we're going to the circus," Francie said, speaking for the
first time.

If she had not spoken before she had done something still more to the
purpose; she had removed any shade of doubt that might have lingered in
the young man's spirit as to her charm of line. He was aware that the
education of Paris, acting upon a natural aptitude, had opened him
much--rendered him perhaps even morbidly sensitive--to impressions of
this order; the society of artists, the talk of studios, the attentive
study of beautiful works, the sight of a thousand forms of curious
research and experiment, had produced in his mind a new sense,
the exercise of which was a conscious enjoyment and the supreme
g