Then the house seemed strangely silent when the door did open, and the footman wore a curious expression as he ushered the late comer into an empty drawing-room.

Langholm was now almost convinced that he had made some absurd mistake, and the impression was not removed by the entry of Steel with his napkin in one hand.
"I've mistaken the night!" exclaimed the perspiring author.
"Not a bit of it," replied Steel; "only we thought you weren't coming at all." "Am I really so late as all that ?" And Langholm began to wish he had mistaken the night.
"No," said Steel, "only a very few minutes, and the sin is ours entirely.

But we thought you were staying away, like everybody else." "Like--everybody--else ?" "My dear fellow," said Steel, smiling on the other's bewilderment, "I humbly apologize for having classed you for an instant with the rank and file of our delightful neighbors; for the fact is that all but two have made their excuses at the last moment.

The telegrams will delight you, one of these days!" "There was none from me," declared Langholm, as he began to perceive what had happened.
"There was not; and my wife was quite confident that you would come; so the fault is altogether mine.

Langholm, you were almost at her heels when she was introduced to the old judge yesterday ?" "I was." "Have you guessed who she was--before she married me--or has anybody told you ?" "I have guessed." Steel stood silent for an instant, his eyes resting in calm scrutiny upon the other, his mouth as firm and fixed, his face fresh as a young man's, his hair like spun silver in the electric light.