"I guess he's not a thousand miles away!" returns Marcia, with a knowing twinkle of her dark eyes. "He'll hang round here presently! Why,—there's Mr. Lorimer worrying in at the doorway!"
"Worrying in" is scarcely the term to apply to the polite but determined manner in which George Lorimer coolly elbows a passage among the heaving bare shoulders, backs, fat arms, and long trains that seriously obstruct his passage, but after some trouble he succeeds in his efforts to reach his fair hostess, who receives him with rather a supercilious uplifting of her delicate eyebrows.
"Dear me, Mr. Lorimer, you are quite a stranger!" she observes somewhat satirically. "We thought you had made up your mind to settle in Norway!"
"Did you really, though!" and Lorimer smiles languidly. "I wonder at that,—for you knew I came back from that region in the August of last year."
"And since then I suppose you have played the hermit?" inquires her ladyship indifferently, unfurling her fan of ostrich feathers and waving it slowly to and fro.
"By no means! I went off to Scotland with a friend, Alec Macfarlane, and had some excellent shooting. Then, as I never permit my venerable mamma to pass the winter in London, I took her to Nice, from which delightful spot we returned three weeks ago."
Lady Winsleigh laughs. "I did not ask you for a categorical explanation of your movements, Mr. Lorimer," she says lightly—"I'm sure I hope you enjoyed yourself?"
He bows gravely. "Thanks! Yes,—strange to say, I did manage to extract a little pleasure here and there out of the universal dryness of things."
"Have you seen your friend, Sir Philip, since he came to town?" asks Mrs. Rush-Marvelle in her stately way.
"Several times. I have dined with him and Lady Errington frequently. I understand they are to be here to-night?"