Graeme was one of the silent and observant ones, and he could not but think how beneficent Nature is in casting us in many moulds.  If we were all built alike, he thought, and all dribbled smart inanities, and nothing but inanities, with the glibness of a Charles Pixley, what a world it would be!

However, it was Charles Pixley who brought Margaret Brandt to that dinner, and Graeme sat on the other side of her there.  And so, Charles Svendt—­blessings on thee, unworthy friar though thou be!

And presently, Miss Brandt, wearying no doubt of perdrix, perdrix, toujours perdrix,—­that is to say of Charles’s sprightly chatter, of which she doubtless got more than enough at home,—­essayed conversation with the silent one at her other side, and, one may suppose, found it more to her taste, or more of a novelty, than the Pixley outflow.

For, once started, she and Graeme talked together most of the evening—­breaking off reluctantly to drink various toasts to people in whom they had, at the moment, no remotest interest whatever, and recovering the thread of their conversation before they resumed their seats.

Only one toast really interested Graeme, and that was “The Ladies—­the Guests of the Evening”; and that he drank right heartily, with his eyes on Miss Brandt’s sparkling face, and if it had been left to himself he would have converted it from plural to singular and drunk to her alone.

Adam Black, excellent fellow, and gifted beyond most with wisdom and insight, and the condensed milk of human kindness, took upon himself the burden of Pixley, and engaged that eminent financier so deeply in talk concerning matters of import, that Miss Brandt and Graeme found themselves at liberty to enjoy one another to their hearts’ content.

They talked on many subjects—­tentatively, and as sounding novel depths—­in a way that occasioned one of them, at all events, very great surprise.  Indeed, it seemed to him afterwards that, for a silent and observant man, he had been led into quite unwonted, but none the less very enjoyable, ways.  He went home that night feeling very much as Columbus must have done when his New World swam before his eyes in misted glory.  He too had sighted a new world.  He had discovered Margaret Brandt.

She had travelled widely over Europe, he learned, and was looking forward with eagerness to another tour in the near future.  They discovered a common liking for many of the places she had visited.

She was a wide and intelligent reader.  To him it was a rare pleasure to meet one.

“New places, and new books, and new people are always a joy to me,” she said, in a glow of naive enthusiasm.  And then she blushed slightly lest he should discover a personal application in the last-named, or even in the last two.

But Graeme was thinking of her, and was formulating her character from the delicious little bits of self-revelation which slipped out every now and again.