He opened his catalogue; and they turned together toward the pictures and were soon discussing them sedulously, as if they wished to shut out the subject of the very recent crisis in their affairs, which was nevertheless constantly present in their minds.  Marian was saluted by many acquaintances.  At each encounter she made an effort to appear unconcerned, and suffered immediately afterward from a suspicion that the effort had defeated its own object, as such efforts often do.  Conolly had something to say about most of the pictures:  generally an unanswerable objection to some historical or technical inaccuracy, which sometimes convinced her, and always impressed her with a confiding sense of ignorance in herself and infallible judgment in him.

“I think we have done enough for one day,” she said at last.  “The watercolors and the sculpture must wait until next time.”

“We had better watch for a vacant seat.  You must be tired.”

“I am, a little.  I think I should like to sit in some other room.  Mrs. Leith Fairfax is over there with Mr. Douglas—­a gentleman whom I know and would rather not meet just now.  You saw him at Wandsworth.”

“Yes.  That tall man?  He has let his beard grow since.”

“That is he.  Let us go to the room where the drawings are:  we shall have a better chance of a seat there.  I have not seen Sholto for two years; and our last meeting was rather a stormy one.”

“What happened?”

Marian was a little hurt by being questioned.  She missed the reticence of a gentleman.  Then she reproached herself for not understanding that his frank curiosity was a delicate appeal to her confidence in him, and answered:  “He proposed to me.”

Conolly immediately dropped the subject, and went in search of a vacant seat.  They found one in the little room where the architects’ drawings languish.  They were silent for some time.

Then he began, seriously:  “Is it too soon to call you by your own name?  ‘Miss Lind’ is distant; but ‘Marian’ might shock you if it came too confidently without preparation.”

“Whichever you please.”

“Whichever I please!”

“That is the worst of being a woman.  Little speeches that are sheer coquetry when you analyze them, come to our lips and escape even when we are most anxious to be straightforward.”

“In the same way,” said Conolly, “the most enlightened men often express themselves in a purely conventional manner on subjects on which they have the deepest convictions.”  This sententious utterance had the effect of extinguishing the conversation for some moments, Marian being unable to think of a worthy rejoinder.  At last she said: 

“What is your name?”

“Edward, or, familiarly, Ned.  Commonly Ted.  In America, Ed. With, of course, the diminutives Neddy, Teddy, and Eddy.”

“I think I should prefer Ned.”

“I prefer Ned myself.”