He would sit in a corner of the drawing-room and look and listen while the conversation went on. They talked about the people they knew, the amusements they had been enjoying, the past season and the future one, and a hundred little details which only persons in their own “set” could understand. John himself could have talked such talk in college rooms or the chambers of a friend, but he would have thought it rude to continue when strangers were present; but the fashionable people did not think it rude. And even when he was leaning over her chair whispering to her, he could note that Kate’s attention failed, and could see her face brighten and her ear strain to hear some petty joke bandied about among the others. “Was it Mr Lunday that said that? it is so like him,” she said once in the very midst of something he was saying. And poor John’s heart sank down--down to his very boots. And then Kate had a hundred things to do in concert with her other guests. She sang with one, and John did not sing, and had to look on with the forlornest thoughts, while a precious hour would pass, consumed by duet after duet and such talk as the following:--“Do you know this?” “Let us try that.” “I must do something to amuse all those people,” she would say, when he complained. She was not angry with him for complaining, but always kind and sweet, and ready, if she gave him nothing else, to give him one of her pretty smiles. “But I shall be gone directly, and I have not had ten minutes of you,” he said, bitterly. “Oh, a great deal more than ten minutes,” said Kate; “you unkind, exacting John! When I was at Fanshawe I had all my time on my hands, and nobody but you to think of;--I mean, no other claims upon me. Don’t you think it hurts me as much as any one, when they all crowd round me, and I see your dear old face, looking so pale and glum, on the outside? Please don’t look so glum! You know I should so much, much rather be with you.” “Should you?” said John, mournfully. Perhaps she believed it; but he found it so very hard to believe. “Dear, I don’t mean to be glum, and spoil your pleasure,” he said, with a certain pathetic humility; “perhaps I had better go and get to my work again, and wait for the old Sunday nights when you come back.” “That will look as if you were angry with me,” she said. “Oh, John, I thought you would understand! You know I can’t do what I would do with all these people in the house. What I should like would be to nurse you and take care of you, and be with you always; but what can I do with all these girls and people? I hate them sometimes, though they are my great friends. Don’t go and make me think you are angry. It is _that_ that would spoil my pleasure. Look here! come and get your hat, and bring me a shawl; there is time for a little walk before the dinner-bell rings.”