Page:Maud Howe - A Newport Aquarelle.djvu/216

 "Whose ball? I tell you, man, I'm just from the backwoods. I have not heard or thought of a ball for many a day."

"Oh," said Gray Grosvenor, and was silent. Strange chance that he, who was simply a club acquaintance, should be the first person to tell Charles Farwell of the ball given that evening by Mrs. Fallow-Deer on the announcement of the engagement of Miss Gladys Carleton to Mr. Cuthbert Larkington.

"Where did you say the ball was?" said Farwell, lighting a cigarette as he spoke.

Gray Grosvenor hesitated for an instant. Should he tell Farwell, who everybody knew had always been in love with his cousin, the news which he had evidently not heard? He had, somewhere about his stout person, the vestige of an organ which in his youth he had called a heart, and for an instant the promptings of that organ hindered him from speaking; but the thought of being able to tell people that he was the first one to break the news to Farwell came to him, and, as