Chapter VI · —A PRESSING INVITATION.

At length Mr Hoppe, in obedience to a previous request from Isaac, came to inform him that at the conclusion of the next dance—a quadrille—there would be an adjournment for supper. Our hero took this opportunity of asking about the gentleman by whom Angela's song was accompanied.

'I can give you no account at all, sir,' said the Master of the Ceremonies; 'though there are not many gents in this neighbourhood that I have not some knowledge of.'

Isaac meanwhile looked about for Angela, and soon discovered her sitting with her aunt and the unknown gentleman.

'You come to claim your engagement,' she said, as she rose and took his arm.

'You look tired,' remarked Isaac, feeling he must say something, and the fact of her looking tired and flushed having struck him first. 'Besides,' he thought, 'women like to be told they look tired.'

'Do you think so?' she replied with a slight blush, as they walked round the room. 'I should scarcely have thought you would have noticed it; but I am rather tired,' she continued, 'as I have been dancing a great deal; and besides that, I feel excited as well, for I have had a very unexpected pleasure to-day. My dear brother, who has been abroad for some years, returned to London to-day without giving us any notice of his coming. He arrived at our house a very short time before we started here, and as he would not hear of my giving up the ball, he came too.'

'Was it your brother who played for you when you sang?' asked Isaac.

'Yes,' she replied. 'It is an old song we learned together many years ago; and as he is a very ready player, it was no trouble to him to accompany me.'

While they thus conversed, the quadrille had been formed, and now the dance was just about to begin.

'Shall you mind very much if we do not dance this time?' inquired Angela of her companion.

'Not at all,' answered Isaac, much relieved; 'not if I may talk to you instead,' he added shyly.

He had committed himself now to a task far more difficult to him than even dancing a quadrille; for of what topics to choose as conversation with the fair creature by his side, he had not the slightest idea. So they walked on in awkward silence.

'Would you mind making me known to your brother?' Isaac at length asked.

'I will with pleasure,' she returned; and seeing him approach in their direction, she caught his arm, and introduced him to Mr Webb as her brother Herbert, from abroad.

'Very pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr Webb,' said he. And then, after a pause, and with an almost imperceptible glance at Isaac's clothes and general appearance, he continued: 'If it is not a rude question, are you a resident in London, or merely making a short stay in it?'

Isaac hated to be questioned; but he must answer; there was no help for it. 'I am staying for a time here,' he said vaguely, 'but my regular home is in the country.'

'Staying with friends, I suppose?' pursued Mr Faithful, not at all abashed.

'No,' answered Isaac; 'I am staying at a coffee-house.'

'You must find it dull sometimes,' said his irrepressible questioner; 'but I presume you have friends in the neighbourhood, or some business to occupy your time and attention?'

Isaac thought it might save further questioning if he gave a little voluntary information.

'I am staying in London for a few weeks for a little change,' he replied. 'I have no friends here, nor any particular business; but I am used to being much alone, so that I do not find it dull.'

'That will not, I hope, prevent me improving my acquaintance with you. I am at present staying with my aunt; in fact, I only arrived in London this afternoon, so have had no time to seek other lodging, even if I do so at all. But speaking in my aunt's name as well as in my own, I hope you will favour us with a call. You will excuse my card, for I have not one with me; but I daresay aunt has her case in her pocket, as she seldom used to go anywhere without it.—Do you mind feeling for it, Angela?'

She presently returned with a card, to which her brother added his name. 'We shall be glad to see you at any time,' he said, handing it to Isaac; 'but possibly the evening may suit you better than any other time, and if so, you will be more likely to find me in.'

Really, notwithstanding his questions at the commencement of their conversation, he was, Isaac considered, a very agreeable person; for he had given him the very opportunity he sought, the difficulty of obtaining which had exercised his mind during his sojourn by the ballroom wall. He did not consider it singular in the least that Herbert Faithful should have pressed such an invitation upon him, a total stranger. No; he was evidently a man of quick discernment, and had at once probed through, with his mind's eye, a portion of the crust of Isaac's reserve, and had discovered some of the precious metal beneath.

Any further conversation at the time was prevented by a general move towards the supper-room; and Herbert, asking his two companions to wait for him, presently brought up the aunt, and the four went into the supper-room together. During the meal, Herbert made himself particularly agreeable; so much so, that Isaac threw off a little more of the crust of his reserve, even going so far as to mention Dambourne End, and to give out a slight glimmer of his own importance in that place as a landowner. The supper, after the manner of such entertainments, was not a protracted one, and passed off, so far as our party was concerned, with no further contre-temps than was occasioned by Isaac, in the exuberance of his feelings, inadvertently tilting his chair so that he came in contact with the back-comb of a middle-aged lady who was sitting back to back with him, thereby forcing that useful ornament into her scalp. A loud scream was the result; but the lady was more startled than hurt, and after apologies more or less awkward from Isaac, she regained her composure and her appetite, and harmony was restored.

After supper, Angela danced but once, and after singing a duet with her brother, came with him to Isaac to say good-night. He accompanied them and their aunt to their cab; and after promising to call upon them very soon, they drove off, and he returned to the ballroom. But the place was now without any interest for him; so after wondering within himself that his heart should have been so easily and speedily reached, and with a new and indescribable feeling of loneliness upon him, he bade Mr Hoppe good-night, after an ineffectual attempt on that individual's part to get at Isaac's habitation and business; and having made no other acquaintance whatever in the room, he obtained his hat and departed to his coffee-house.