“Great fun it must have been,” she said. “How delicious a little impromptu thing like that is! And singing too: well, you had a nice evening, Georgie. And now let us make some delicious little plan for to-day. Pop in presently and have ’ickle music and bit of lunch.” “I’m afraid I’ve just promised to lunch with Daisy,” said he. This again was rather ominous, for there could be no doubt that Daisy, having said she was engaged, had popped in here to effect an engagement. “How gay!” said Lucia. “Come and dine this evening then! Really, Georgie, you are busier than any of us in London.” “Too tarsome,” said Georgie, “because Olga’s coming in here.” “And the Princess?” asked Lucia before she could stop herself. “No, she went away this morning,” said Georgie. That was something, anyhow, thought Lucia. One distinguished person had gone away from Riseholme. She waited, in slowly diminishing confidence, for Georgie to ask her to dine with him instead. Perhaps he would ask Pepino too, but if not, Pepino would be quite happy with his telescope and his cross-words all by himself. But it was odd and distasteful to wait to be asked to dinner by anybody in Riseholme instead of everyone wanting to be asked by her. “She went away by the ten-thirty,” said Georgie, after an awful pause. Lucia had already learned certain lessons in London. If you get a snub--and this seemed very like a snub--the only possible course was to be unaware of it. So, though the thought of being snubbed by Georgie nearly made her swoon, she was unaware of it. “Such a good train,” she said, magnificently disregarding the well-known fact that it stopped at every station, and crawled in between. “Excellent,” said Georgie with conviction. He had not the slightest intention of asking Lucia to dine, for he wanted his tête-à-tête with Olga. There would be such a lot to talk over, and besides it would be tiresome to have Lucia there, for she would be sure to gabble away about her wonderful life in London, and her music-room and her Chippendale chairs, and generally to lay down the law. She must be punished too, for her loathsome conduct in disregarding her old friends when she had her party from London, and be made to learn that her old friends were being much smarter than she was. Lucia kept her end up nobly. “Well, Georgie, I must trot away,” she said. “Such a lot of people to see. Look in, if you’ve got a spare minute. I’m off again to-morrow. Such a whirl of things in London this week.”