Mr. Lanley, too, was a trifle nervous during the afternoon.  He tried to say to himself that it was because the future of his darling little Mathilde was about to be settled.  He shook his head, indicating that to settle the future of the young was a risky business; and then in a burst of self-knowledge he suddenly admitted that what was really making him nervous was the incident of the pier.  If Mrs. Wayne referred to it, and of course there was no possible reason why she should not refer to it, Adelaide would never let him hear the last of it.  It would be natural for Adelaide to think it queer that he hadn’t told her about it.  And the reason he hadn’t told was perfectly clear:  it was on that infernal pier that he had formed such an adverse opinion of Mrs. Wayne.  But of course he did not wish to prejudice Adelaide; he wanted to leave her free to form her own opinions, and he was glad, excessively glad, that she had formed so favorable a one as to ask the woman to dinner.  There was no question about his being glad; he surprised his servant by whistling as he put on his white waistcoat, and fastened the buckle rather more snugly than usual.  Self-knowledge for the moment was not on hand.

He arrived at exactly the hour at which he always arrived, five minutes after eight, a moment not too early to embarrass the hostess and not too late to endanger the dinner.

No one was in the drawing-room but Mathilde and Farron.  Adelaide, for one who had been almost perfectly brought up, did sometimes commit the fault of allowing her guests to wait for her.

“’Lo, my dear,” said Mr. Lanley, kissing Mathilde.  “What’s that you have on?  Never saw it before.  Not so becoming as the dress you were wearing the last time I was here.”

Mathilde felt that it would be almost easier to die immediately, and was revived only when she heard Farron saying: 

“Oh, don’t you like this?  I was just thinking I had never seen Mathilde looking so well, in her rather more mature and subtle vein.”

It was just as she wished to appear, but she glanced at her stepfather, disturbed by her constant suspicion that he read her heart more clearly than any one else, more clearly than she liked.

“How shockingly late they are!” said Adelaide, suddenly appearing in the utmost splendor.  She moved about, kissing her father and arranging the chairs.  “Do you know, Vin, why it is that Pringle likes to make the room look as if it were arranged for a funeral?  Why do you suppose they don’t come?”

“Any one who arrives after Adelaide is apt to be in wrong,” observed her husband.

“Well, I think it’s awfully incompetent always to be waiting for other people,” she returned, just laying her hand an instant on his shoulder to indicate that he alone was privileged to make fun of her.

“That perhaps is what the Waynes think,” he answered.

Mathilde’s heart sank a little at this.  She knew her mother did not like to be kept waiting for dinner.