She was soon to meet him, however. Lavender was resolved that he would not appear to have retired from the field merely because Ingram had entered it. He would go to this dinner on the Tuesday evening, and Sheila would accompany him. First, he asked her. Much as she would have preferred not visiting these particular people, she cheerfully acquiesced; she was not going to be churlish or inconsiderate on the very eve of her dramatic _coup_. Then he went to Mrs. Lorraine, and said he had persuaded Sheila to come with him; and the young American lady and her mamma were good enough to say how glad they were she had come to this decision. They appeared to take it for granted that it was Sheila alone who had declined former invitations. “Mr. Ingram will be there on Tuesday evening,” said Lavender to his wife. “I was not aware he knew them,” said Sheila, remembering, indeed, how scrupulously Ingram had refused to know them. “He has made their acquaintance for his own purposes, doubtless,” said Lavender. “I suppose he will appear in a frock-coat, with a bright blue tie, and he will say ‘Sir’ to the waiters when he does not understand them.” “I thought you said Mr. Ingram belonged to a very good family,” said Sheila, quietly. “That is so. But each man is responsible for his own manners; and as all the society he sees consists of a cat and some wooden pipes in a couple of dingy rooms in Sloane Street, you can’t expect him not to make an ass of himself.” “I have never seen him make himself ridiculous; I do not think it possible,” said Sheila, with a certain precision of speech which Lavender had got to know meant much. “But that is a matter for himself. Perhaps you will tell me what I am to do when I meet him at Mrs. Kavanagh’s house.” “Of course you must meet him as you would any one else, you know. If you don’t wish to speak to him, you need not do so. Saying ‘Good evening’ costs nothing.” “If he takes me into dinner?” she asked, calmly. “Then you must talk to him as you would to any stranger,” he said, impatiently. “Ask him if he has been to the opera, and he won’t know there is no opera going on. Tell him that the town is very full, and he won’t know that everybody has left. Say you may meet him again at Mrs. Kavanagh’s, and you’ll see that he doesn’t know they mean to start for the Tyrol in a fortnight. I think you and I must also be settling soon where we mean to go. I don’t think we can do better than go to the Tyrol.” She did not answer. It was clear that he had given up all intention of going up to Lewis, for that year at least. But she would not beg him to alter his decision just yet. Mairi was coming, and that experiment of the enchanted room has still to be tried.