“Viking—­yes, he looks it exactly.  I couldn’t think.  Tell me something about him.”

“Well,” he laughed, lowering his voice a little, here goes for a little rough and ready editing.  One thing about Chiltern that’s to be admired is that he’s never cared a rap what people think.  Of course, in a way, he never had to.  His family own a section of the state, where they’ve had woollen mills for a hundred years, more or less.  I believe Hugh Chiltern has sold ’em, or they’ve gone into a trust, or something, but the estate is still there, at Grenoble—­one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen.  The General—­this man’s father—­was a violent, dictatorial man.  There is a story about his taking a battery at Gettysburg which is almost incredible.  But he went back to Grenoble after the war, and became the typical public-spirited citizen; built up the mills which his own pioneer grandfather had founded, and all that.  He married an aunt of Mrs. Grainger’s,—­one of those delicate, gentle women who never dare to call their soul their own.”

“And then?” prompted Honora, with interest.

“It’s only fair to Hugh,” Farwell continued, “to take his early years into account.  The General never understood him, and his mother died before he went off to school.  Men who were at Harvard with him say he has a brilliant mind, but he spent most of his time across the Charles River breaking things.  It was, probably, the energy the General got rid of at Gettysburg.  What Hugh really needed was a war, and he had too much money.  He has a curious literary streak, I’m told, and wrote a rather remarkable article—­I’ve forgotten just where it appeared.  He raced a yacht for a while in a dare-devil, fiendish way, as one might expect; and used to go off on cruises and not be heard of for months.  At last he got engaged to Sally Harrington—­Mrs. Freddy Maitland.”

Honora glanced across the table.

“Exactly,” said Mr. Farwell.  “That was seven or eight years ago.  Nobody ever knew the reason why she broke it—­though it may have been pretty closely guessed.  He went away, and nobody’s laid eyes on him until he turned up to-night.”

Honora’s innocence was not too great to enable her to read between the lines of this biography which Reginald Farwell had related with such praiseworthy delicacy.  It was a biography, she well knew, that, like a score of others, had been guarded as jealously as possible within the circle on the borders of which she now found herself.  Mrs. Grainger with her charities, Mrs. Littleton Pryor with her good works, Miss Godfrey with her virtue—­all swallowed it as gracefully as possible.  Noblesse oblige.  Honora had read French and English memoirs, and knew that history repeats itself.  And a biography that is printed in black letter and illuminated in gold is attractive in spite of its contents.  The contents, indeed, our heroine had not found uninteresting, and she turned now to the subject with a flutter of anticipation.