"I was to meet Phil here," she said, "but somehow I must have missed him." "Let us walk about a little, and we'll be sure to find him," said John. She was so glad to take his arm, almost to cling to him, to find herself with a friend. "I don't know many people here," she confided to John, leaning on his arm, with the familiar sisterly dependence of old, "and I am so stupid about coming out by myself. It is because I have never been used to it. There has always been mamma, and then Phil; but I suppose he has been detained somewhere to-night. I think I never felt so lost before, among all these strange people. He knows everybody, of course." "But you have a lot of friends, Elinor." "Oh, yes," she said, brightly enough; "in our own set: but this is what Phil calls more serious than our set. I should not wonder in the least if he had shirked it at the last, knowing I would be sure to come." "That is just the reason why I should have thought he would not shirk it," said John. "Ah, that's because you're not married," said Elinor, but with a laugh in which there was no bitterness. "Don't you know one good of a wife is to do the man's social duties for him, to appear at the dull places and save his credit? Oh, I don't object at all; it is quite a legitimate division of labour. I shall get into it in time: but I am so stupid about coming into a room alone, and instead of looking about to see what people I really do know, I just stiffen into a sort of shell. I should never have known you if you had not come up to me, John." "You see I was looking out for you, and you were not looking out for me, that makes all the difference." "You were looking out for us!" "Ever since the season began I have been looking out for you, everywhere," said John, with a rather fierce emphasis on the pronoun, which, however, as everybody knows, is plural, and means two as much as one, though it was the reverse of this that John Tatham meant to show. "Ah!" said Elinor. "But then I am afraid our set is different, John. There will always be some places--like this, for instance--where I hope we shall meet; but our set perhaps is a little frivolous, and your set a little--serious, don't you see? You are professional and political, and all that; and Phil is--well, I don't know exactly what Phil is--more fashionable and frivolous, as I said. A race-going, ball-going, always in motion set." "Most people," said John, "go more or less to races and balls." "More or less, that makes the whole difference. We go to them all. Now you see the distinction, John. You go to Ascot perhaps on the cup day; we go all the days and all the other days, at the other places." "How knowing you have become!" "Haven't I?" she said, with a smile that was half a sigh. "But I shouldn't have thought that would have suited you, Elinor."