“Oh, Margaret!” cries Tita.  “Oh, Meg!  Meg!  And I was so rude to you!  But to see him—­to see him again——­”

“My poor darling!” says Margaret, pressing the girl to her with infinite tenderness.

CHAPTER XXVI.

HOW SOME OLD FRIENDS REAPPEAR AGAIN; AND HOW SOME NEWS IS TOLD; AND HOW MAURICE MAKES ANOTHER EFFORT TO WIN HIS CASE.

“Just been to see her,” says Mr. Gower, who has selected the snuggest chair in Margaret’s drawing-room, and is now holding forth from its cushioned depths with a radiant smile upon his brow.  “She’s staying with the Tennants.  They always had a hankering after Mrs. Bethune.”

“Fancy Marian’s being with anyone when Tessie is in town!” says Margaret.  “Captain Marryatt, that is a wretchedly uncomfortable chair.  Come and sit here.”

“Oh, thanks!  I’m all right,” says Marryatt, who would have died rather than give up his present seat.  It has a full command of the door.  It is plain, indeed, to all present that he is expecting someone, and that someone Mrs. Chichester—­his mistaken, if honest, infatuation for that lean young woman being still as ardent as of yore.

Minnie Hescott, who is talking to Tita, conceals a smile behind her fan.

“What! haven’t you heard about her and Marian?” asks Gower, leaning towards his hostess.  “Why, you must be out of the swim altogether not to have heard that.  There’s a split there.  A regular cucumber coldness!  They don’t speak now.”

“An exaggeration, surely,” says Margaret.  “I saw lady Rylton yesterday and——­ How d’ye do, colonel Neilson?”

There is the faintest blush on Margaret’s cheek as she rises to receive her warrior.

“I hardly expected you to-day; I thought you were going down to Twickenham.”

“What an awful story!” says Gower, letting her hear his whisper under pretence of picking up her handkerchief.

“Monday will do for that,” says Neilson.  “But Monday might not do for you.  I decided not to risk the Sunday.  By-the-bye, I have something to say to you, presently, if you can spare me a moment.”

“Certainly,” says Margaret, whereon the Colonel moves away to talk to someone else.

“Same old game, I suppose,” suggests Gower, in a sweetly confidential tone, when he has gone.  “Find it a little slow, don’t you, knowing exactly what he’s going to say to you, presently, when you have spared him a moment?”

“I really don’t know,” says Margaret, bringing a dignified eye to bear upon him.

“No?  Then you ought.  It isn’t that you haven’t had opportunities enough.  Time has not been denied you.  But as you say you don’t know, I think it my duty to prepare you; to——­”

“Really, Randal, I don’t wish to know anything.  I dare say Colonel Neilson is quite capable of——­”

“He appears to me,” severely, “to be thoroughly in-capable.  He ought to have impressed it upon your brain in half the time he’s taken to do it.  It is quite a little speech, and only firmness was required to make you remember it.  This is it——­”