This was real delight, for between her excitements Ethelberta had been seriously sick-hearted at the horrible possibility of his never calling again.  But alas! for Christopher.  There being nothing like a dead silence for getting one’s off-hand sweetheart into a corner, there is nothing like prematurely ending it for getting into that corner one’s self.

‘Now won’t I punish him for daring to stay away so long!’ she exclaimed as soon as she got upstairs.  ’It is as bad to show constancy in your manners as fickleness in your heart at such a time as this.’

‘But I thought honesty was the best policy?’ said Picotee.

’So it is, for the man’s purpose.  But don’t you go believing in sayings, Picotee:  they are all made by men, for their own advantages.  Women who use public proverbs as a guide through events are those who have not ingenuity enough to make private ones as each event occurs.’

She sat down, and rapidly wrote a line to Mr. Julian:—­

   ’Exonbury crescent.

’I return from Mayfair Hall to find you have called.  You will, I know, be good enough to forgive my saying what seems an unfriendly thing, when I assure you that the circumstances of my peculiar situation make it desirable, if not necessary.  It is that I beg you not to give me the pleasure of a visit from you for some little time, for unhappily the frequency of your kind calls has been noticed; and I am now in fear that we may be talked about—­invidiously—­to the injury of us both.  The town, or a section of it, has turned its bull’s-eye upon me with a brightness which I did not in the least anticipate; and you will, I am sure, perceive how indispensable it is that I should be circumspect.—­Yours sincerely,

   E. Petherwin.’

21.  A street—­Neigh’s rooms—­Christopher’s rooms

As soon as Ethelberta had driven off from the Hall, Ladywell turned back again; and, passing the front entrance, overtook his acquaintance Mr. Neigh, who had been one of the last to emerge.  The two were going in the same direction, and they walked a short distance together.

‘Has anything serious happened?’ said Neigh, noticing an abstraction in his companion.  ‘You don’t seem in your usual mood to-night.’

‘O, it is only that affair between us,’ said Ladywell.

‘Affair?  Between you and whom?’

’Her and myself, of course.  It will be in every fellow’s mouth now, I suppose!’

‘But—­not anything between yourself and Mrs. Petherwin?’

’A mere nothing.  But surely you started, Neigh, when you suspected it just this moment?’

‘No—­you merely fancied that.’

‘Did she not speak well to-night!  You were in the room, I believe?’

’Yes, I just turned in for half-an-hour:  it seems that everybody does, so I thought I must.  But I had no idea that you were feeble that way.’