“Why he’s coming on the twenty-fifth—you’ll see him then,” said the girl.
“On the twenty-fifth?” St. George asked vaguely.
“We dine with you; I hope you haven’t forgotten. He’s dining out that day,” she added gaily to Paul.
“Oh bless me, yes—that’s charming! And you’re coming? My wife didn’t tell me,” St. George said to him. “Too many things—too many things!” he repeated.
“Too many people—too many people!” Paul exclaimed, giving ground before the penetration of an elbow.
“You oughtn’t to say that. They all read you.”
“Me? I should like to see them! Only two or three at most,” the young man returned.
“Did you ever hear anything like that? He knows, haughtily, how good he is!” St. George declared, laughing to Miss Fancourt. “They read _me_, but that doesn’t make me like them any better. Come away from them, come away!” And he led the way out of the exhibition.
“He’s going to take me to the Park,” Miss Fancourt observed to Overt with elation as they passed along the corridor that led to the street.
“Ah does he go there?” Paul asked, taking the fact for a somewhat unexpected illustration of St. George’s moeurs.
“It’s a beautiful day—there’ll be a great crowd. We’re going to look at the people, to look at types,” the girl went on. “We shall sit under the trees; we shall walk by the Row.”
“I go once a year—on business,” said St. George, who had overheard Paul’s question.
“Or with a country cousin, didn’t you tell me? I’m the country cousin!” she continued over her shoulder to Paul as their friend drew her toward a hansom to which he had signalled. The young man watched them get in; he returned, as he stood there, the friendly wave of the hand with which, ensconced in the vehicle beside her, St. George took leave of him. He even lingered to see the vehicle start away and lose itself in the confusion of Bond Street. He followed it with his eyes; it put to him embarrassing things. “She’s not for _me_!” the great novelist had said emphatically at Summersoft; but his manner of conducting himself toward her appeared not quite in harmony with such a conviction. How could he have behaved differently if she _had_ been for him? An indefinite envy rose in Paul Overt’s heart as he took his way on foot alone; a feeling addressed alike strangely enough, to each of the occupants of the hansom. How much he should like to rattle about London with such a girl! How much he should like to go and look at “types” with St. George!