“Who, Lionel?”

“Miss Burgoyne—­at the theatre, you know.  She’s very good to me—­lends me her room if I have any swell friends who want to come behind—­and makes me this lemonade, which is better than anything else on a hot night.  Couldn’t you send her something from the garden?—­not flowers—­she gets too many flowers, and doesn’t care for them; but if you had some early strawberries or something of that kind, she would take them as a greater compliment, coming from you, than if some idiot of a young fool spent guineas on them at a florist’s.  And when are you coming up to see ‘The Squire’s Daughter,’ Francie?  The idea that you should never have been near the place, when I hear people confessing to each other that they have been to see it eight and ten, or even a dozen times!”

“But I am so busy, Lionel!” she said; and then perhaps an echo of something that had been said in the morning may have recurred to her mind; for she seemed a trifle confused, and kept her eyes downcast, while Lionel went on to tell them of what certain friends of his were going to do at Henley Regatta.

After luncheon they went out into the garden, and took seats in the shade of the lilac-trees, in the sweet air.  Old Mrs. Moore had for form’s sake brought a book with her; but she was not likely to read much when the pride of her eyes had come down on a visit to her, and was now talking to her, in his off-hand, light-hearted way.  Maurice Mangan had followed the doctor’s example and pulled out his pipe—­which he forgot to light, however.  He seemed dissatisfied.  He kept looking back to the house from time to time.  Was there no one else coming out?  There was the French window of the drawing-room still open; was there no glimmer of a gray dress anywhere—­with its ornamentation of a bunch of scarlet geraniums?  At last he made bold to say to the doctor: 

“Where has Miss Francie gone to?  Isn’t she coming out too?”

“Oh, she’s away after those London brats of hers, I have no doubt,” the old gentleman said.  “You won’t see her till teatime, if even then.”  Whereupon Mangan lit his pipe, and proceeded to smoke in silence, listening at times and absently to Lionel’s vivacious talking to his mother.

In fact, before Miss Francie Wright returned that afternoon, Lionel found that he had to take his departure, for there are no trains to Winstead on Sunday, and he would have to walk some three miles to the nearest station.  When he declared he had to go, the old lady’s protests and entreaties were almost piteous.

“You come to see us so seldom, Lionel!  And of course we thought you’d dine with us, at the very least; and if you could stay the night as well, you know there’s a room for Mr. Mangan too.  And we were looking forward to such a pleasant evening.”

“But I have a long-standing engagement, mother; a dinner engagement—­I could not get out of it.”

“And you are dragging Mr. Mangan away up to town again, on a beautiful afternoon like this, when we know he is so fond of the country and of a garden—­”