“No,” replied Honora.  “She looks most attractive.  I caught a glimpse of her at the polo that day with you.”

“I’ve been at her house in Newport ever since.  Came down yesterday to try to earn some money,” he continued, cheerfully making himself agreeable.  “Deuced clever woman, much too clever for me and Jerry too.  Always in a tete-a-tete with an antiquarian or a pathologist, or a psychologist, and tells novelists what to put into their next books and jurists how to decide cases.  Full of modern and liberal ideas—­believes in free love and all that sort of thing, and gives Jerry the dickens for practising it.”

“Oh!” exclaimed Honora.

Mr. Cuthbert, however, did not appear to realize that he had shocked her.

“By the way,” he asked, “have you seen Cecil Grainger since the Quicksands game?”

“No,” she replied.  “Has Mr. Grainger been at Quicksands since?”

“Nobody knows where he’s been,” answered Mr. Cuthbert.  “It’s a mystery.  He hasn’t been home—­at Newport, I mean-for a fortnight.  He’s never stayed away so long without letting any one know where he is.  Naturally they thought he was at Mrs. Kame’s in Banbury, but she hasn’t laid eyes on him.  It’s a mystery.  My own theory is that he went to sleep in a parlour car and was sent to the yards, and hasn’t waked up.”

“And isn’t Mrs. Grainger worried?” asked Honora.

“Oh, you never can tell anything about her,” he said.  “Do you know her?  She’s a sphinx.  All the Pendletons are Stoics.  And besides, she’s been so busy with this Charities Conference that she hasn’t had time to think of Cecil.  Who’s that?”

“That” was a lady from Rivington, one of Honora’s former neighbours, to whom she had bowed.  Life, indeed, is full of contrasts.  Mr. Cuthbert, too, was continually bowing and waving to acquaintances on the Avenue.

Thus pleasantly conversing, they arrived at the first house on the list, and afterwards went through a succession of them.  Once inside, Honora would look helplessly about her in the darkness while her escort would raise the shades, admitting a gloomy light on bare interiors or shrouded furniture.

And the rents:  Four, five, six, and seven and eight thousand dollars a year.  Pride prevented her from discussing these prices with Mr. Cuthbert; and in truth, when lunch time came, she had seen nothing which realized her somewhat vague but persistent ideals.

“I’m so much obliged to you,” she said, “and I hope you’ll forgive me for wasting your time.”

Mr. Cuthbert smiled broadly, and Honora smiled too.

Indeed, there was something ludicrous in the remark.  He assumed an attitude of reflection.

“I imagine you wouldn’t care to go over beyond Lexington Avenue, would you?  I didn’t think to ask you.”

“No,” she replied, blushing a little, “I shouldn’t care to go over as far as that.”

He pondered a while longer, when suddenly his face lighted up.