He had to cross a vast, dim space before he reached that lighted region.  With what seemed to him a reeling and uncertain gait, he approached over the perilously slippery parquet.  Miss Harden rose and came forward, mercifully cutting short that frightful passage from the threshold to her chair.

Lucia had not carried out the intention she had announced to Kitty.  She had dressed in haste; but in Rickman’s eyes the effect was that which Kitty had seen fit to deprecate.  She had made herself very pretty indeed.  He could not have given a very clear account of it, could not have said whether the thing she wore, that floating, sweeping, curling, trailing, folding and caressing garment were made of grey gossamer in white or white in grey, but he was aware that it showed how divinely her slender body carried its flower, her head; showed that her arms, her throat, and the first sweep and swell of her shoulders, were of one tone with the luminous pallor of her face.  Something in the dress, in her bearing and manner of approach, gave her the assured charm of womanhood for the unfinished loveliness of youth.

She introduced him to her friend Miss Palliser, whose green eyes smiled in recognition.  He bowed with the stiffness of a back unaccustomed to that form of salutation.  He hardly knew what happened after that, till he found himself backing, nervously, ridiculously backing into a lonely seat in the middle of the room.

The three were now grouped in a neat geometrical figure, Mr. Rickman, on the chair of his choice, forming the apex of a prolonged triangle, having the hearthrug for its base.  He was aware that Miss Harden and Miss Palliser were saying something; but he had no idea of what they said.  He sat there wondering whether he ought to be seated at all, whether he ought not rather to be hovering about that little table, ready to wait upon Miss Palliser.  He was still wondering when Miss Palliser got up with the evident intention of waiting upon him.

That, he knew, was all wrong; it was not to be permitted for a moment.  Inspired by a strange, unnatural courage, he advanced and took his coffee from her hand, retreating with it to his remote and solitary position.

He sat silent, moodily looking at his coffee, stirring it from time to time and wondering whether he would ever be brave enough to drink it.  He waited for an opportunity of dispatching it unperceived.  The presence of Miss Palliser paralysed him.  He wondered whether he ought to say anything to her or to Miss Harden, or to neither or to both; he tried to think of something suitable to say.

Meanwhile Miss Palliser talked for all three.  It seemed that she had dined with her friend on her way to an “at home” in Harmouth.

“Bread and butter?” said she judicially “N—­no, I think not, thanks.  I’ve got to eat jellies and sandwiches and things for two hours straight on end.  It sounds horrible, but I shall be driven to it.  At the Flossers,” she explained for her friend’s benefit, “you must either eat or talk; and if you can’t talk scandal you’re not expected to talk at all.”  And still talking Miss Palliser slowly bore down upon Mr. Rickman with a plate of bread and butter.