When they arrived at the Garden Club (so named from its proximity to Covent Garden) they went forthwith into the spacious apartment on the ground floor which served at once as dining-room, newspaper-room, and smoking-room. There was hardly anybody in it. Four young men in evening dress were playing cards at a side-table; at another table a solitary member was writing; but at the long supper-table--which was prettily lit up with crimson-shaded lamps, and the appointments of which seemed very trim and clean and neat--all the chairs were empty, and the only other occupants of the place were the servants, who wore a simple livery of white linen. "What for supper, Maurice?" the younger of the two friends asked. "Anything--with salad," Mangan answered; he was examining a series of old engravings that hung around the walls. "On a warm night like this what do you say to cold lamb, salad, and some hock and iced soda-water?" "All right." Supper was speedily forthcoming, and, as they took their places, Mangan said, "You don't often go down to see the old people, Linn?" "I'm so frightfully busy!" "Has Miss Francie ever been up to the theatre--to see 'The Squire's Daughter,' I mean?"--this question he seemed to put rather diffidently. "No. I've asked her often enough; but she always laughs and puts it off. She seems to be as busy down there as I am up here." "What does she think of the great name and fame you have made for yourself?" "How should I know?" Then there was silence for a second or two. "I wish you'd run down to see them some Sunday, Linn; I'd go down with you." "Why not go down by yourself?--they'd be tremendously glad to see you." "I should be more welcome if I took you with me. You know your cousin likes you to pay a little attention to the old people. Come! Say Sunday week." "My dear fellow, Sunday is my busiest day. Sunday night is the only night I have out of the seven. And I fancy that it is for that very Sunday evening that Lord Rockminster has engaged the Lansdowne Gallery; he gives a little dinner-party, and his sisters have a big concert afterwards--we've all got to sing the chorus of the new marching-song Lady Sybil has composed for the army." "Who is Lady Sybil?" "The sister of the authoress whose novel you were reading." "My gracious! is there another genius in the family?" "There's a third," said Lionel, with a bit of a smile. "What would you say if Lady Rosamund Bourne were to paint a portrait of me as Harry Thornhill for the Royal Academy?" "I should say the betting was fifty to one against its getting in." "Ah, you're unjust, Maurice; you don't know them. I dare say you judged that novel by some high literary standard that it doesn't pretend to reach. I am sure of this, that if it's half as clever as Lady Adela Cunyngham herself, it will do very well." "It will do very well for the kind of people who will read it," said the other, indifferently.