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 CHAPTER VI

IN WHICH WE DINE OUT IN GROSVENOR SQUARE

Father sat down to write a letter, and Uncle Philip smoked a cigarette in a meerschaum holder and read the Sporting Times. But the unfortunate young man could hardly bring his mind to bear upon those chaste pink pages for all that the Dwarf and Mr. Pitcher were quite at the top of their form this week.

Was it that his conscience hurt him? Fretting about Busoni do you suppose? Wondering whether the seventh unmarried daughter and the dearest mother had got to Queen's Hall unscathed, and had also managed to get back again all right?

May have been so. If there is a doubt about it, conscientious fellow is entitled to benefit thereby; but we are bound to admit there is a doubt upon the subject.

And our reasons be these, lieges all and masterful men. At twenty to seven, long before Father had finished his letters, who should deign to enter the silence room but the identical Arminius Wingrove, to whom the gentle reader has already had the honor of a formal introduction.