"I don't know. I suppose I must have dreamt it." "I think you must. I've been in town for the last six weeks." "In town?" "Yes, if Hampstead's town. I've been staying with the Jewdwines. Didn't he tell you?" "No, he never told me anything." She was silent for a moment. "So _that's_ why you never came to see me." "To see you? I didn't know--and if I had I shouldn't have thought--" He hesitated. "Of what? Of coming to see me?" "No, that you would have cared for me to come." "I think that's not a thing you ought to say. Of course I cared." "Well, but I couldn't take that for granted, could I?" "Couldn't you? Not after the messages I sent you?" "But I never got any messages." "Didn't you?" Her upper lip quivered; it was as if she winced at some thought that struck her like a blow. "Then my cousin must have forgotten to give them to you. Just like him; he is shockingly careless." Now Rickman knew it was not just like him; Jewdwine was not careless, he was in all things painfully meticulous; and he never forgot. "I don't think I can forgive him for that." "You must forgive him. He is overwhelmed with work. And he isn't really as thoughtless as you might suppose. He has given me news of you regularly. You can't think how glad I was to hear you were getting on so well. As for the latest news of all--" She lifted her face and looked at him with her sweet kind eyes. "It _is_ true that you are going to be married?" "Quite true." "I was so glad to hear that, too." "Thanks." There was a slight spasm in his throat. That thick difficult word stuck in it and choked him for the moment. "I hope I shall meet your wife some day." "You have met her." Lucia looked puzzled and he smiled, a little sadly for a bridegroom. "You sat next her at dinner. She's here somewhere." Lucia turned her head to where Flossie was sitting by a table, sitting very upright, with her little air of strained propriety. "Is it--is it that pretty lady? Do you think I might go up and speak to her? I would so like to know her." "I'll bring her to you. There's rather a crowd just now in the other room." He went to her, hardly knowing how he went. "Flossie," he said, "I want to introduce you to Miss Harden." Flossie's eyes brightened with surprise and pleasure; for she had learnt from Mrs. Downey that the visitor was the daughter of Sir Frederick Harden; and Lucia's distinction subdued her from afar. Keith, being aware of nothing but Lucia, failed to perceive, as he otherwise might have done, that he had risen in Flossie's opinion by his evident intimacy with Miss Harden. She came blushing and smiling and a little awkward, steered by Keith. But for all her awkwardness she had never looked prettier than at that moment of her approach.