hand, voicing great pleasure in this remeeting. And then his eye went
flitting, with a certain interrogativeness, from mother to daughter.
"Such an agreeable coincidence," beamed the good little lady. "Or
perhaps this is not your first visit here, like ours? When did you
return? Carlisle...."
Carlisle, having forgotten more about the Great Game than her mother
would ever know, was far from effusive. Advancing half a step from the
bookcase, and offering the tips of white-gloved fingers, she said,
smiling perfunctorily:
"How nice to see you. And Willie Kerr, our very delinquent host,--do you
bring us news of him?"
"I'm told that he's unluckily detained downtown. But, indeed, it's
charming to find you awaiting him too, Miss Heth."
Mrs. Heth sparkled, and declaimed of Willie's remissness. Canning stood
in the middle of the floor, hat and stick under his arm, looking without
pretences at Carlisle. Under the agreeable indifference of his seemingly
amused eye, she felt her color mounting, which only brightened her
loveliness. Perhaps it was not quite so easy to maintain the reasoning
of beautiful ladies here on the firing-line, as in the maidenly
cloister at home.
"Why are men the unreliable sex, Mr. Canning?" said she, laughing. "Here
Willie begs us for days to visit him at his rooms--I believe he thinks
there's something rather gay and wicked about it, you know, though mamma
picked them out for him!--and assures us on his honor as a banker that
he is in every afternoon by five at the very latest. So we inconvenience
ourselves and come. And now--look!"
"At what, Miss Heth? I trust nothing serious has happened?"
"Ah, but our time is so valuable, you see. We must leave without even
saying how-do-you-do. Don't you think so, mamma?"
"So it seems," said Mrs. Heth, and sank into a chair.
Canning smiled.
"Very pleasant little diggings he has here," he observed casually--"my
first glimpse of them. I happened to be coming in town on business, and
Kerr invited me particularly to drop in to see them, at half after
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