Page:The Reverberator (2nd edition, American issue, London and New York, Macmillan & Co., 1888).djvu/58

48 liked the way they treated him; though demonstrative it was not artificial. Mr. Dosson said they had been hoping he would come round again and Delia remarked that she supposed he had had quite a journey—Paris was so big; and she urged his acceptance of a glass of wine or a cup of tea. She added that that wasn't the place where they usually received (she liked to hear herself talk of "receiving"), and led the party up to her white and gold saloon, where they should be so much more private: she liked also to hear herself talk of privacy. They sat on the red silk chairs and she hoped Mr. Probert would at least taste a sugared chestnut or a chocolate; and when he declined, pleading the imminence of the dinner-hour, she murmured, "Well, I suppose you're so used to them—living so long over here."

The allusion to the dinner-hour led Mr. Dosson to express the wish that he would go round and dine with them without ceremony; they were expecting a friend—he generally settled it for them—who was coming to take them round.

"And then we are going to the circus," Francie said, speaking for the first time.

If she had not spoken before she had done something still more to the purpose; she had removed any shade of doubt that might have lingered in the young man's spirit as to her charm of line. He was aware that his Parisian education, acting upon a natural aptitude, had opened