“Don’t think me a great brute for not being here to receive you,” he said, as he clasped his hand. “I was writing an important letter and I put it to myself in this way: ‘If I interrupt my letter I shall have to come back and finish it; whereas if I finish it now, I can have all the rest of the day to spend with him.’ So I stuck to it to the end, and now we can be inseparable.” “You may be sure Gordon reasoned it out,” said Blanche, while her husband offered his hand in silence to Captain Lovelock. “Gordon’s reasoning is as fine as other people’s feeling!” declared Bernard, who was conscious of a desire to say something very pleasant to Gordon, and who did not at all approve of Blanche’s little ironical tone about her husband. “And Bernard’s compliments are better than either,” said Gordon, laughing and taking his seat at table. “I have been paying him compliments,” Blanche went on. “I have been telling him he looks so brilliant, so blooming--as if something had happened to him, as if he had inherited a fortune. He must have been doing something very wicked, and he ought to tell us all about it, to amuse us. I am sure you are a dreadful Parisian, Mr. Longueville. Remember that we are three dull, virtuous people, exceedingly bored with each other’s society, and wanting to hear something strange and exciting. If it ‘s a little improper, that won’t spoil it.” “You certainly are looking uncommonly well,” said Gordon, still smiling, across the table, at his friend. “I see what Blanche means--” “My dear Gordon, that ‘s a great event,” his wife interposed. “It ‘s a good deal to pretend, certainly,” he went on, smiling always, with his red face and his blue eyes. “But this is no great credit to me, because Bernard’s superb condition would strike any one. You look as if you were going to marry the Lord Mayor’s daughter!” If Bernard was blooming, his bloom at this juncture must have deepened, and in so doing indeed have contributed an even brighter tint to his expression of salubrious happiness. It was one of the rare occasions of his life when he was at a loss for a verbal expedient. “It ‘s a great match,” he nevertheless murmured, jestingly. “You must excuse my inflated appearance.” “It has absorbed you so much that you have had no time to write to me,” said Gordon. “I expected to hear from you after you arrived.” “I wrote to you a fortnight ago--just before receiving your own letter. You left New York before my letter reached it.” “Ah, it will have crossed us,” said Gordon. “But now that we have your society I don’t care. Your letters, of course, are delightful, but that is still better.”