She rose, and Seymour Michael prepared to take the vacant seat. The youth called Jack was making signs with his eyebrows, and in attempting to decipher his meaning she forgot to mention Dora's name. “You will be sorry for this,” said Seymour Michael, sitting down. “You will not thank your cousin.” “Why?” inquired Dora, prepared to like him, possibly because he had a brown face and wore his hair cut short. “Because,” he replied, “I am hopelessly new to this work.” “So am I,” replied Dora; “I don't even know what pictures to look at and what to ignore. So I dare not look at the walls at all.” “That is precisely my position, only I am worse. You know how to behave in polite circles; I don't. You have a slightly tired look, as if this sort of thing wearied you by reason of its monotony.” “Have I? I am sorry for that.” “No, there is no reason to be sorry. They all have it.” “But,” protested Dora, “I am not one of them. I am only aping the Romans.” “You do it well; I shall study your method. You do it better than Edith Mazerod.” “Edith is young--hopelessly, enviably young. Do you know them well?” “Yes, I knew them in India.” “Of course; I forgot.” He turned and looked at her sharply. Sometimes his own reputation, far from being a happiness, gave him cause for misgiving. A man with an unclean record cannot well be sure that all the details he would wish suppressed have been suppressed. There was a little pause, during which they both watched the self-satisfied throng moving in and out, here and there, full of a restless desire to be observed. It was Seymour Michael who spoke first. True to his mixed blood, he sought to make himself safe. “Excuse me,” he said, “but Edith Mazerod did not mention your name; may I ask it?” “Dora Glynde!” She saw him start. She saw a sudden wavering gleam in his eyes which in another man she would have set down to fear. “Miss Dora Glynde,” he repeated; and the expression of his face was so serene again that the look which had passed away from it began already to present itself to her memory as a conception of her own brain. “When I was younger and shyer,” he said, with a singular haste, “I was afraid to ask a lady her name when I did not catch it, and--and I frequently regretted not having had the courage to do so.” She recollected it all afterwards--every word, every pause. But then, as so frequently happens, knowledge aided her memory, and added significance to every detail. “Are you staying with the Mazerods?” he asked. “Yes, I am being shown life. I am doing a season. To-night is part of my education. To-morrow, I believe, we go to Hurlingham; the next day to a charity bazaar, and so on. I believe I am getting on very well. Aunt Mary is pleased with me. But I still stare about me, and show visible disappointment when I am presented to a literary celebrity or some other person of newspaper renown.” “Celebrities in the flesh _are_ disappointing.”