“Not at all,” Lionel said.  “I need not spoil Maurice’s day, if I have to spoil my own; he’ll stay, of course; and I suppose Francie will be back directly.”

“I’m sure, Mr. Mangan,” the old lady said, turning at once to her other guest, “if Lionel must really go, we shall be delighted if you will remain and dine with us—­I hope you will—­and you can have Lionel’s room if you will stay the night as well.”

“Thank you, I couldn’t do that,” said he, very gratefully, “but if you will have me, I shall be very glad to stay on, and go up by a late train.  In the meantime, I think I’ll walk to the station with Linn.”

“And come back with a good appetite for dinner,” said the doctor, calling after him.  “We’ll have something better than lemonade, I warrant ye!”

They have slow trains on these Surrey lines on Sunday; by the time that Lionel had got up to town and driven to his rooms and dressed, it was very near the hour at which he was due at the Lansdowne Gallery, where Lord Rockminster was giving a dinner-party, as a preliminary to the concert and crush that were to follow.  And no sooner had he alighted from his hansom, and entered the marble vestibule of the gallery, than whom should he descry ascending the stairs in front of him but Mr. Octavius Quirk.

“Lady Adela hasn’t let the grass grow under her feet,” he said to himself.  “Captured her first critic already!”

Lady Adela was at the head of the stairs receiving her brother’s guests; and the greeting that she accorded to Mr. Octavius Quirk was of a most special and gracious kind.  She was very complaisant to Lionel also, and bade him go and see if the place they had given him at dinner was to his liking.  He took this as a kind of permission to choose what he wanted (within discreet limits); and as he just then happened to meet Miss Georgie Lestrange, he proposed to that smiling and ruddy-haired damsel that they should go and examine for themselves—­and perhaps alter the dispositions a little.  So they passed away through those brilliantly lit galleries (which served as a picture-exhibition on week-days), and at the farther end of the largest room they found the oblong dinner-table, which was brilliant with flowers and fruit, with crystal and silver.  Of course Lionel and his companion had to be content with very modest places, for this was a highly distinguished company which Lord Rockminster had invited; but at all events they made sure they were to sit together, and that arrangement seemed to be satisfactory to them both.

This was rather a magnificent little banquet; and Lionel, looking down the long, richly colored table, may once or twice have thought of the quiet, small dining-room at Winstead (perhaps with the curtains still undrawn, and the evening light shining blue in the panes), and of the solitary guest whom he had left to talk to those good people; but indeed he was not permitted much time for reverie, for the young lady with the pince-nez was a most lively chatterer; she knew everything that was going on in London, and seemed to take a particularly active interest therein.  Among other solemn items of information which she communicated to her companion, she mentioned that the issue of Lady Adela’s novel had been postponed.