Page:Love and Mr. Lewisham – Wells (1899).djvu/50

38 lady in the avenue. Her face was somehow quite familiar to me. Who was she?"

Should he say she was a friend of the Frobishers? In that case Bonover, in his insidious amiable way might talk to the Frobisher parents and make things disagreeable for her. "She was," said Lewisham, flushing deeply with the stress on his honesty and dropping his voice to a mumble, "a a  an old friend of my mother's. In fact, I met her once at Salisbury."

"Where?"

"Salisbury."

"And her name?"

"Smith," said Lewisham, a little hastily and repenting the lie even as it left his lips.

"Well hit, Harris!" shouted Bonover, and began to clap his hands. "Well hit, sir."

"Harris shapes very well," said Mr. Lewisham.

"Very," said Mr. Bonover. "And—what was it? Ah! I was just remarking the odd resemblances there are in the world. There is a Miss Henderson—or Henson—stopping with the Frobishers—in the very same town, in fact, the very picture of your Miss "

"Smith," said Lewisham, meeting his eye and recovering the full crimson note of his first blush.

"It's odd," said Bonover, regarding him pensively.

"Very odd," mumbled Lewisham, cursing his own stupidity and looking away.