‘Come out into the garden, will you?’ he said, after receiving a brief explanation of what had passed between Nancy and her father.  ‘I’ve something to tell you.’

His sister carelessly assented, and with heads uncovered they went through the house into the open air.  The garden was but a strip of ground, bounded by walls of four feet high; in the midst stood a laburnum, now heavy with golden bloom, and at the end grew a holly-bush, flanked with laurels; a border flower-bed displayed Stephen Lord’s taste and industry.  Nancy seated herself on a rustic bench in the shadow of the laburnum, and Horace stood before her, one of the branches in his hand.

‘I promised Fanny to take her to-morrow night,’ he began awkwardly.

‘Oh, you have?’

‘And we’re going together in the morning, you know.’

‘I know now.  I didn’t before,’ Nancy replied.

‘Of course we can make a party in the evening.’

‘Of course.’

Horace looked up at the ugly house-backs, and hesitated before proceeding.

‘That isn’t what I wanted to talk about,’ he said at length.  ’A very queer thing has happened, a thing I can’t make out at all.’

The listener looked her curiosity.

’I promised to say nothing about it, but there’s no harm in telling you, you know.  You remember I was away last Saturday afternoon?  Well, just when it was time to leave the office, that day, the porter came to say that a lady wished to see me—­a lady in a carriage outside.  Of course I couldn’t make it out at all, but I went down as quickly as possible, and saw the carriage waiting there,—­a brougham,—­and marched up to the door.  Inside there was a lady—­a great swell, smiling at me as if we were friends.  I took off my hat, and said that I was Mr. Lord.  “Yes,” she said, “I see you are;” and she asked if I could spare her an hour or two, as she wished to speak to me of something important.  Well, of course I could only say that I had nothing particular to do,—­that I was just going home.  “Then will you do me the pleasure,” she said, “to come and have lunch with me?  I live in Weymouth Street, Portland Place.”

The young man paused to watch the effect of his narrative, especially of the last words.  Nancy returned his gaze with frank astonishment.

‘What sort of lady was it?’ she asked.

’Oh, a great swell.  Somebody in the best society—­you could see that at once.’

‘But how old?’

‘Well, I couldn’t tell exactly; about forty, I should think.’

‘Oh!—­Go on.’

’One couldn’t refuse, you know; I was only too glad to go to a house in the West End.  She opened the carriage-door from the inside, and I got in, and off we drove.  I felt awkward, of course, but after all I was decently dressed, and I suppose I can behave like a gentleman, and—­well, she sat looking at me and smiling, and I could only smile back.  Then she said she must apologise for