As she says this she glances round, as though for the first time alive to the fact that indeed he is not beside her. "Impossible!" says Kennedy. "Give any other reason but that, and I may believe you. I am quite sure he is missing you terribly, and is vainly searching every nook and corner by this time for your dead body. No doubt he fears the worst. If you were my----I mean if ever I were to marry (which of course is quite out of the question now), I shouldn't let my wife out of my sight." "Poor woman! what a time she is going to put in!" says Mrs. Branscombe, pityingly. "Don't go about telling people all that, or you will never get a wife. By this time Dorian and I have made the discovery that we can do excellently well without each other sometimes." Dorian coming up behind her just as she says this, hears her, and changes color. "How d'ye do!" he says to Kennedy, civilly, if not cordially, that young man receiving his greeting with the utmost bonhommie and an unchanging front. For a second, Branscombe refuses to meet his wife's eyes, then, conquering the momentary feeling of pained disappointment, he turns to her, and says, gently,-- "Do you care to stay much longer? Clarissa has gone, and Scrope, and the Carringtons." "I don't care to stay another minute: I should like to go home now," says Georgie, slipping her hand through his arm, as though glad to have something to lean on; and, as she speaks, she lifts her face and bestows upon him a small smile. It is a very dear little smile, and has the effect of restoring him to perfect happiness again. Seeing which, Kennedy raises his brows, and then his hat, and, bowing, turns aside, and is soon lost amidst the crowd. "You are sure you want to come home?" says Dorian, anxiously. "I am not in a hurry, you know." "I am. I have walked enough, and talked enough, to last me a month." "I am afraid I rather broke in upon your conversation just now," says Branscombe, looking earnestly at her. "But for my coming, Kennedy would have stayed on with you; and he is a--a rather amusing sort of fellow, isn't he?" "Is he? He was exceedingly stupid to-day, at all events. I don't believe he has a particle of brains, or else he thinks other people haven't. I enjoyed myself a great deal more with the old duke, until that ridiculous Sir John Lincoln came to us. I don't think he knew a bit who the duke was, because he kept saying odd little things about the grounds and the guests, right under his nose; at least, right behind his back: it is all the same thing." "What is? His nose and his back?" asks Dorian; at which piece of folly they both laugh as though it was the best thing in the world.