amused, and she screamed when she was bored in order that it might appear that she was not. Just now she was amusing herself very tolerably, for as soon as the lights were up, the world in general flocked into her box, supplementing the very desirable company already assembled there.
' Why, of course I am coming back next year,' she was explaining. ' And if Lewis doesn't come with me, and take Seaton House for me, so as to be able to have more than one person to dinner at a time, I guess I'll have a word or two to say to him which he won't forget; and if you, Mrs. Massington, don't come over to us in the fall with Lord Keynes, I shall cry my eyes out; and if that monster, Mr. Brancepeth, is as impudent again as he was at dinner, saying that he would pick them up and take them home to remind him of me, I'll ask him to leave my box, and call him back the moment afterwards, because I can't help forgiving him.'
There was a laugh at this brilliant effort of imagination, and Mrs. Massington leaned back in her chair towards Charlie, while Mrs. Palmer continued her voluble remarks.
' You are getting quite polished, Charlie,' she said. ' I should not have suspected you of so much gallantry.'
' I hope you never suspect me of anything,' he said.
' Oh, I do—of lots of things. Chiefly of a disapproving attitude. You are always disapproving. Now, you probably disapprove of my going to America.'
' You have not gone yet,' he said.
' No, but I shall. Mrs. Palmer has asked me to stay with them, and I am going. And Bertie is really going too.'
' So he told me to-night.'
' Who suggested it? His father?'
' Yes. As usual, he has shown his immensely good sense.'
