With more heart than he had lately had for former subjects of interest, Wilding then set about completing his patriarchal establishment, being much assisted not only by Mrs. Goldstraw but by Vendale too:  who, perhaps, had in his mind the giving of an Obenreizer dinner as soon as possible.  Anyhow, the establishment being reported in sound working order, the Obenreizers, Guardian and Ward, were asked to dinner, and Madame Dor was included in the invitation.  If Vendale had been over head and ears in love before—­a phrase not to be taken as implying the faintest doubt about it—­this dinner plunged him down in love ten thousand fathoms deep.  Yet, for the life of him, he could not get one word alone with charming Marguerite.  So surely as a blessed moment seemed to come, Obenreizer, in his filmy state, would stand at Vendale’s elbow, or the broad back of Madame Dor would appear before his eyes.  That speechless matron was never seen in a front view, from the moment of her arrival to that of her departure—­except at dinner.  And from the instant of her retirement to the drawing-room, after a hearty participation in that meal, she turned her face to the wall again.

Yet, through four or five delightful though distracting hours, Marguerite was to be seen, Marguerite was to be heard, Marguerite was to be occasionally touched.  When they made the round of the old dark cellars, Vendale led her by the hand; when she sang to him in the lighted room at night, Vendale, standing by her, held her relinquished gloves, and would have bartered against them every drop of the forty-five year old, though it had been forty-five times forty-five years old, and its nett price forty-five times forty-five pounds per dozen.  And still, when she was gone, and a great gap of an extinguisher was clapped on Cripple Corner, he tormented himself by wondering, Did she think that he admired her!  Did she think that he adored her!  Did she suspect that she had won him, heart and soul!  Did she care to think at all about it!  And so, Did she and Didn’t she, up and down the gamut, and above the line and below the line, dear, dear!  Poor restless heart of humanity!  To think that the men who were mummies thousands of years ago, did the same, and ever found the secret how to be quiet after it!

“What do you think, George,” Wilding asked him next day, “of Mr. Obenreizer? (I won’t ask you what you think of Miss Obenreizer.)”

“I don’t know,” said Vendale, “and I never did know, what to think of him.”

“He is well informed and clever,” said Wilding.

“Certainly clever.”

“A good musician.” (He had played very well, and sung very well, overnight.)

“Unquestionably a good musician.”

“And talks well.”

“Yes,” said George Vendale, ruminating, “and talks well.  Do you know, Wilding, it oddly occurs to me, as I think about him, that he doesn’t keep silence well!”

“How do you mean?  He is not obtrusively talkative.”