“Oh well, there’s a lot of nonsense talked about that!” Captain Sholto replied; on which Hyacinth remained uncertain of his reference and Millicent decided to volunteer a remark. “They’re making a tremendous row on the stage. I should think it would be very bad in those boxes.” There was a banging and thumping behind the curtain, the sound of heavy scenery pushed about. “Oh yes, it’s much better here every way. I think you’ve the best seats in the house,” said their visitor. “I should like very much to finish my evening beside you. The trouble is I’ve ladies—a pair of them,” he pursued as if he were seriously considering this possibility. Then laying his hand again on Hyacinth’s shoulder he smiled at him a moment and indulged in a still greater burst of frankness. “My dear fellow, that’s just what, as a partial reason, has brought me up here to see you. One of my ladies has a great desire to make your acquaintance!” “To make my acquaintance?” Hyacinth felt himself turn pale; the first impulse he could have in connexion with such an announcement as that—and it lay far down in the depths of the unspeakable—was a conjecture that it had something to do with his parentage on his father’s side. Captain Sholto’s smooth bright face, irradiating such unexpected advances, seemed for an instant to swim before him. The Captain went on to say that he had told the lady of the talks they had had, that she was immensely interested in such matters—“You know what I mean, she really is”—and that as a consequence of what he had said she had begged him to come and ask—a—his young friend (Hyacinth saw in a moment that the Captain had forgotten his name) to look in at her if he didn’t mind. “She has a tremendous desire to meet some one who looks at the whole business from your standpoint, don’t you see? And in her position she scarcely ever has a chance, she doesn’t come across them—to her great annoyance. So when I spotted you to-night she immediately declared I must introduce you at any cost. I hope you don’t mind just for a quarter of an hour. I ought perhaps to tell you that she’s a person used to having nothing refused her. ‘Go up and bring him down,’ you know, as if it were the simplest thing in the world. She’s really very much in earnest: I don’t mean about wishing to see you—that goes without saying—but about our whole job, yours and mine. Then I should add—it doesn’t spoil anything—that she’s the most charming woman in the world, simply! Honestly, my dear boy, she’s perhaps the most remarkable woman in Europe.”