“It is a deadly time of year,” assented Loring, with a quick look at her, “but I’m grateful to it if it makes my presence welcome to you. Of course I called at once. I was rather afraid you might be still away.” “We came back ten days ago,” answered Mrs. Romayne, accepting and putting aside his little compliment with a mocking gesture, as a form of words entirely conventional. “Julian has been quite lost without you. He is looking very well, I think, and is working amazingly.” The introduction of Julian’s name into the conversation had in neither case come from Julian’s friend; but this time it appeared to strike Loring as incumbent upon him to pursue the topic. “The approving words with which you received me were intended for him, I suppose,” he said carelessly. “You’re expecting him?” There was a moment’s pause while Mrs. Romayne turned her head, as if involuntarily, and listened intently; that haunted look coming suddenly back into her eyes. The moment passed, and she turned to Loring again with a quick, self-conscious glance, and an unreal laugh. “I’m expecting him; yes,” she said. “I’m ridiculous enough to make that very obvious, I’m afraid! I’m so glad he won’t miss you. He doesn’t generally come in at this hour. This is a treat--for me!” She laughed, and Loring said with mock solemnity of interest: “Indeed!” “I really had to be quite plaintive this morning,” she went on in the same tone, “on the subject of not seeing him for four days except at breakfast! He has made a good many new acquaintances already, it seems, and has to dine out a good deal.” “Really!” commented Loring. His tone was quite unmoved, and Mrs. Romayne did not see the expression in his shrewd, shallow eyes, as she spoke--an expression of amused curiosity. “He dines at his club, I suppose?” he enquired indifferently after a moment. “Yes; or at some ‘other fellow’s’ club,” laughed his mother. “Legal institutions, I suppose!” There was a brief silence; one of those silences which come when one branch of a conversation is felt to be exhausted; and then Loring finished his tea, put down his cup, and settled himself into a comfortable attitude. “I forget whether you were taken with the Ibsen craze last season, Mrs. Romayne?” he said. “We shall all have to tie wet towels round our heads--it won’t be becoming, I’m afraid--and give ourselves up to solitary meditation, I hear! He is to be the thing this winter, they tell me.” “Ibsen?” repeated Mrs. Romayne reflectively; obviously searching in her memory for some ideas to attach to the name, which she was as obviously conscious of having heard before. “Ibsen? Oh, yes,” with a sudden flash of inspiration, “oh, yes, of course; that ‘Dolls’ House’ man, that everybody talked of going to see just at the end of the season.”