him, and when he went down and found himself part of a laughing and
chattering company in the library he still found it, in his inner sense,
here, there, and yonder.

He was aware of suffering a little disappointment in Mrs. Westangle's
entire failure to mention Miss Shirley, though he was aware that his
disappointment was altogether unreasonable, and he more reasonably
decided that if she knew anything of his arrival, or the form of it, she
had too much of the making of a grande dame to be recognizant of it. He
did not know from her whether she had meant to send for him at the
station or not, or whether she had sent her carriage back for him when he
did not arrive in it at first. Nothing was left in her manner of such
slight specialization as she had thrown into it when, at the Macroyds',
she asked him down to her house party; she seemed, if there were any
difference, to have acquired an additional ignorance of who and what he
was, though she twittered and flittered up close to his elbow, after his
impersonal welcome, and asked him if she might introduce him to the young
lady who was pouring tea for her, and who, after the brief drama
necessary for possessing him of a cup of it, appeared to have no more use
for him than Mrs. Westangle herself had. There were more young men than
young women in the room, but he imagined the usual superabundance of
girlhood temporarily absent for repair of the fatigues of the journey.
Every girl in the room had at least one man talking to her, and the girl
who was pouring tea had one on each side of her and was trying to fix
them both with an eye lifted towards each, while she struggled to keep
her united gaze watchfully upon the tea-urn and those who came up with
cups to be filled or refilled.

Verrian thought his fellow-guests were all amiable enough looking, though
he made his reflection that they did not look, any of them, as if they