Mr Pomfret emitted a little chuckling sound. "Lucky devil. How did you do it? I thought she was unapproachable. She walks down the High Street, `with a haughty stare, and her nose in the air,' and looks neither to left nor right. How did you manage it, old man?" Hugh laughed. "Oh, as easy as anything. Just dropped in to Winkley's, expecting to see a lot of you fellows with your best girls. Not a soul there I knew. Room full--every table full, save for one at which Miss Burton was sitting alone--sat at the one table, _vis-a-vis_ with Miss Burton. There it is in a nutshell." Mr Pomfret grinned broadly. "Oh, Hughie, what I would have given for your chance. You know I am awfully gone on that girl, she is so sweet and dainty, far and away the prettiest girl in Blankfield. What did you make of your chance?" "As much as could be made in five or ten minutes. She told me a lot about things, her disappointment in finding that the Blankfield people would not call upon her, and that, excepting her brother, she had not a soul to speak to." "Poor little soul!" said Mr Pomfret, in a voice of the deepest sympathy. "Poor little soul!" he repeated. "Well, we talked for some little time, some ten minutes perhaps, I don't think it could have been much longer. And then--then--you will never believe it, Jack--she asked me to call, and be introduced to her brother." Mr Pomfret was quite young, in fact he was the baby of the regiment. But having been educated at a public school, he had learned a certain amount of worldly wisdom rather early. He gave expression to it now. "If she were living with her mother, or a maiden aunt, Hughie, the thing would be so easy. But the brother, we have seen him walking beside that lovely girl. It would be difficult to class him. It would be perhaps too much to say he was either a bounder or a cad--he's not boisterous enough for the one or common enough for the other. But clearly, he's not a gentleman or the imitation of one." "No," answered Hugh. "Your description of the brother quite fits. He is neither fish, flesh, fowl, nor good red-herring, as the old saw has it. Then the girl is so different. She is, to an extent, frank and unconventional." "She must be, or she wouldn't have asked you to call upon her," interrupted the astute Mr Pomfret. "Quite so, I perfectly agree. But upon my soul, Jack, she has the most perfect manners. She does these sort of things in such a way that you cease to wonder why she does them." "I understand." Mr Pomfret looked very wise. "There's a wonderful fascination about the girl. She radiates it, even when you pass her in the street. By Gad, there's not a young woman in Blankfield who can hold a candle to her. Well, Hughie, what are you going to do about the invitation?" "I'm in two minds, old man, to go or stay away. There's the brother, you see."