It was five o'clock, and he was left alone in the company of a fascinating little tea-table, laid, as if for a guest, with fine white linen, silk embroidered, with early Georgian silver and old china. It was laid for him, that little tea-table. He had delayed a little before beginning his repast, and it happened that when Miss Harden appeared again she found him holding a tea-cup to his lips with one hand, while the other groped in a dish of cream cakes, abstractedly, and without the guidance of a selective eye. Both eyes indeed were gazing dreamily over the rim of the tea-cup at her empty chair. He was all right; so why, oh why did he turn brick-red and dash his cup down and draw back his innocent hand? That was what he had seen the errand boy at Rickman's do, when he caught him eating lunch in a dark passage. He always had compassion on that poor pariah and left him to finish his meal in privacy; and with the same delicacy Miss Harden, perceiving his agony, withdrew. He was aware that the incident had marked him. He stood exactly where he stood before. Expert knowledge was nothing. Mere conversational dexterity was nothing. He could talk to her about Euripides and Sophocles till all was blue; he could not blow his nose before her, or eat and drink before her, like a gentleman, without shame and fear. They talked no more that evening. CHAPTER XVI At seven he again refused Miss Harden's hospitality and withdrew to his hotel. He was to return before nine to let her know his decision, and as yet he had done nothing towards thinking it out. A letter had come for him by the evening post. It had been forwarded from his rooms and ran thus. "My dear Rickets: "I haven't forgotten about your little supper, so mind you turn up at our little pic-nic before Dicky drinks all the champagne. It's going to be awfully select. "Ever your own and nobody else's, "Poppy Grace. "P.S.--How is your poor head?" There are many ways of being kind and that was Poppy's way. She wanted to tell him not to be cut up about Wednesday night; that, whatever Dicky Pilkington thought of his pretensions, she still reckoned him in the number of the awfully select. And lest he should have deeper grounds for uneasiness her postscript hinted in the most delicate manner possible that she had not taken him seriously, attributing his utterances to their true cause. And yet she was his own and nobody else's. She was a good sort, Poppy, taking her all round.