Page:A London Life, The Patagonia, The Liar, Mrs Temperly.djvu/195

 'I have an idea he will go.'

'Why didn't he tell me so then—when he came in?'

'He was diverted by Miss Mavis—a beautiful unexpected girl sitting there.'

'Diverted from his mother—trembling for his decision?'

'She's an old friend; it was a meeting after a long separation.'

'Yes, such a lot of them as he knows!' said Mrs. Nettlepoint.

'Such a lot of them?'

'He has so many female friends—in the most varied circles.'

'Well, we can close round her then—for I on my side knew, or used to know, her young man.'

'Her young man?'

'The fiancé, the intended, the one she is going out to. He can't by the way be very young now.'

'How odd it sounds!' said Mrs. Nettlepoint.

I was going to reply that it was not odd if you knew Mr. Porterfield, but I reflected that that perhaps only made it odder. I told my companion briefly who he was—that I had met him in the old days in Paris, when I believed for a fleeting hour that I could learn to paint, when I lived with the jeunesse des écoles, and her comment on this was simply—'Well, he had better have come out for her!'

'Perhaps so. She looked to me as she sat there as if she might change her mind at the last moment.'

'About her marriage?'

'About sailing. But she won't change now.'

Jasper came back, and his mother instantly challenged him. 'Well, are you going?'