Scarcely two days before, Sebastian had treated, first with levity and contempt, and then with downright repugnance, the prospect of dining at the Spenceleys’ house, or cultivating their further acquaintance. Mrs. Mallory had at that moment in her pocket a note, in Helena’s handwriting, requesting the pleasure of the company of Mrs. and Mr. Mallory, and that of Mr. von Birkenau, to dinner ten days hence. ‘If I go out of my way to make new acquaintances, about whom I care nothing in the world, it is only fair that you should put yourself a little out of the way too, Sebastian.’ ‘Perfectly fair. As how?’ ‘We are invited to dine at the Spenceleys on the --th. If you don’t go there, and behave civilly to my friends, I really don’t see how I can encourage yours, about whom I know nothing, to come here, or go to see them myself.’ ‘I quite grasp the importance of the situation,’ said Sebastian, with that placid politeness which exasperated Mrs. Mallory beyond bounds, because she did not know into what language to translate it. ‘If you will call upon Miss Blisset within the next day or two--I mean a proper call, you know, with an intimation that you would like her to return it, and so on--I will go to any amount of Spenceley spreads, be they never so gorgeous, and will listen to Miss Spenceley’s diatribes with the utmost resignation. There will be the contrast to think of.’ This was not very encouraging behaviour; but it was the best to be extracted from her very ‘trying’ son, and Mrs. Mallory had to accept it, merely remarking, ‘If your friend, Miss Blisset, has anything like the good qualities of Helena, I shall be surprised.’ ‘No, she has not,’ said Sebastian. ‘Miss Spenceley has one hundred thousand golden virtues--not to mention others of a less tangible character--of a kind that Adrienne Blisset knows nothing about.’ Mrs. Mallory made a note of the ‘Adrienne Blisset,’ and began to feel an intense dislike to that young lady. But the bargain had been struck. On the third day after the treaty had been, so to speak, signed, Mrs. Mallory called out her horses and called out her men, and drove in state to see and overwhelm Miss Blisset. She saw her; but the overwhelming remained still a dream of the future. Adrienne’s utter freedom from embarrassment in the presence of Mrs. Mallory, of the Oakenrod, might be in bad taste, but it could not very well be commented upon. She parried all her visitor’s hidden thrusts upon the subject of Sebastian with a cool adroitness which called forth her visitor’s reluctant admiration, and behaved altogether with an ease and an address which was the more reprehensible in that it seemed so perfectly natural. ‘But it could not have been natural,’ reflected Mrs. Mallory, as she drove away. ‘The attention, after Sebastian’s calling there and finding her, was so marked. I think she is the most consummate little actress I ever met anywhere.’ CHAPTER XIX. ‘I DREAMT I DWELT IN MARBLE HALLS.’