‘Well, who is it?’

‘Where?’ asked Mallinson, assuming an air of perplexity.

‘Where you were looking,’ said she quietly.

‘It’s Stephen Drake,’ interposed Fielding, and ‘Hulloa!’ he added in a voice of surprise as he observed the man whom Drake joined.

‘Drake!  Stephen Drake!’ exclaimed Mr. Le Mesurier, leaning forward hurriedly.  ‘Point him out to me, Fielding.’

The latter obeyed, and Mr. Le Mesurier watched Drake until he disappeared through the doorway, with what seemed to Mallinson a singular intentness.  The father’s manner waked him to a suspicion that he might possibly have mistaken the daughter’s motive in seeking Drake’s acquaintance.  Was it merely a whim, a fancy, strengthened to the point of activity by the sight of his name in print?  Or was it something more?  Was there some personal connection between Drake and the Le Mesuriers of which the former was in some way ignorant?  He was still pondering the question when Clarice spoke to him.

‘So that was the bourgeois, was it?’ she said, bending forwards and almost whispering the words.  Mallinson flushed.

‘Was it?’ he asked.  ‘I can’t see.  I am rather short-sighted.’

‘I begin to think you are.’

The sentence was spoken with an ironic sympathy which deepened the flush upon Mallinson’s cheek.  A knock at the door offered him escape; he rose and admitted Conway.  Conway was received with politeness by Mr. Le Mesurier, with cordiality by his daughter.

‘I have Drake with me,’ said Conway.  ’I came to ask permission, since you invited him to Beaufort Gardens, to introduce him after the next act.’

Mr. Le Mesurier started up in his chair.

‘Did you ask him to the house?’ he asked Clarice abruptly.

‘I asked Mr. Mallinson to bring him,’ she replied; and then, with all the appearance of a penitent anxiety, ‘Why?  Oughtn’t I to have done so?’ she asked.

Mr. Le Mesurier cast a suspicious glance at his daughter.

‘I am so sorry,’ she said; ‘I didn’t know that—­’

‘Oh well,’ interrupted Mr. Le Mesurier hurriedly, ’there’s no reason that I know of why you shouldn’t have asked him, except that it’s surely a trifle unusual, isn’t it?  You don’t know him from Adam.’

‘But I assure you, Mr. Le Mesurier,’ interposed Conway, ’there’s nothing to be said against Drake.’

‘Of course!’ replied Mr. Le Mesurier, with a testy laugh at the other’s warmth.  ’We know the length of your enthusiasms, my dear Conway.  But I’ll grant all you like about Drake.  I only say that my daughter isn’t even acquainted with the fellow.’

‘It is just that drawback which Mr. Conway proposes to remove,’ said Clarice demurely.  ‘Of course,’ she went on, ’I should never have thought of inviting him if Mr. Mallinson had not spoken of him so often as his friend.’  She directed her sweetest smile to Mallinson.  ’You did, didn’t you?  Yes!  Mr. Drake had been away from England for so long that I thought it would be only kind to ask you to bring him.  But if I had known that papa had any objection, I should naturally never have done it.  I am very sorry.  Perhaps I am not careful enough.’  She ended her speech in a tone of self-reproach, which had its effect; for her father was roused by it to expostulate.