"Not a bit," Vereker laughed main. "Nobody does."

The lady on his further side appealed to him, and Miss Poyle sank
back to myself. "Nobody sees anything!" she cheerfully announced;
to which I replied that I had often thought so too, but had somehow
taken the thought for a proof on my own part of a tremendous eye.
I didn't tell her the article was mine; and I observed that Lady
Jane, occupied at the end of the table, had not caught Vereker's
words.

I rather avoided him after dinner, for I confess he struck me as
cruelly conceited, and the revelation was a pain. "The usual
twaddle"--my acute little study! That one's admiration should have
had a reserve or two could gall him to that point! I had thought
him placid, and he was placid enough; such a surface was the hard
polished glass that encased the bauble of his vanity. I was really
ruffled, and the only comfort was that if nobody saw anything
George Corvick was quite as much out of it as I. This comfort
however was not sufficient, after the ladies had dispersed, to
carry me in the proper manner--I mean in a spotted jacket and
humming an air--into the smoking-room. I took my way in some
dejection to bed; but in the passage I encountered Mr. Vereker, who
had been up once more to change, coming out of his room. HE was
humming an air and had on a spotted jacket, and as soon as he saw
me his gaiety gave a start.

"My dear young man," he exclaimed, "I'm so glad to lay hands on
you! I'm afraid I most unwittingly wounded you by those words of
mine at dinner to Miss Poyle. I learned but half an hour ago from
Lady Jane that you're the author of the little notice in The