sounds through the lamp-lit evening and far into the night.




CHAPTER II


Two or three days afterwards, Kendal, in looking over his
engagement-book, in which the entries were methodically kept, noticed
'Afternoon tea, Mrs. Stuart's, Friday,' and at once sent off a note to
Edward Wallace, suggesting that they should go to the theatre together on
Thursday evening to see Miss Bretherton, 'for, as you will see,' he
wrote, 'it will be impossible for me to meet her with a good conscience
unless I have done my duty beforehand by going to see her perform.' To
this the American replied by a counter proposal. 'Miss Bretherton,' he
wrote, 'offers my sister and myself a box for Friday night; it will hold
four or five; you must certainly be of the party, and I shall ask
Forbes.'

Kendal felt himself a little entrapped, and would have preferred to see
the actress under conditions more favourable to an independent judgment,
but he was conscious that a refusal would be ungracious, so he accepted,
and prepared himself to meet the beauty in as sympathetic a frame of mind
as possible.

On Friday afternoon, after a long and fruitful day's work, he found
himself driving westward towards the old-fashioned Kensington house of
which Mrs. Stuart, with her bright, bird-like, American ways, had
succeeded in making a considerable social centre. His mind was still full