"
"And come back with a good appetite for dinner," said the doctor,
calling after him. "We'll have something better than lemonade, I warrant
ye!"
They have slow trains on these Surrey lines on Sunday; by the time that
Lionel had got up to town and driven to his rooms and dressed, it was
very near the hour at which he was due at the Lansdowne Gallery, where
Lord Rockminster was giving a dinner-party, as a preliminary to the
concert and crush that were to follow. And no sooner had he alighted
from his hansom, and entered the marble vestibule of the gallery, than
whom should he descry ascending the stairs in front of him but Mr.
Octavius Quirk.
"Lady Adela hasn't let the grass grow under her feet," he said to
himself. "Captured her first critic already!"
Lady Adela was at the head of the stairs receiving her brother's guests;
and the greeting that she accorded to Mr. Octavius Quirk was of a most
special and gracious kind. She was very complaisant to Lionel also, and
bade him go and see if the place they had given him at dinner was to his
liking. He took this as a kind of permission to choose what he wanted
(within discreet limits); and as he just then happened to meet Miss
Georgie Lestrange, he proposed to that smiling and ruddy-haired damsel
that they should go and examine for themselves--and perhaps alter the
dispositions a little.
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