Phyllis had been asked very quietly by the hostess if she would mind being taken in by George Holland; if she had the least feeling on the matter, Sir Lionel Greatorex would not mind taking her instead of Mrs.Vernon-Brooke.

But Phyllis had said that of course she would be delighted to sit beside Mr.Holland.

Mr.Holland was one of her best friends.
"Is his case so hopeless as that ?" said Lady Earlscourt, in a low voice, and Phyllis smiled in response--the smile of the guest when the hostess had made a point.
When Lady Earlscourt had indiscreetly, but confidentially, explained to some of her guests the previous week that she meant her little dinner party to be the means of reuniting Mr.Holland and Miss Ayrton, one of them--he was a man--smiled and said, when she had gone away, that she was a singularly unobservant woman, or she would have known that the best way of bringing two people together is to keep them as much apart as possible.

There was wisdom in the paradox, he declared; for everyone should know that it was only when a man and a woman were far apart that they came to appreciate each other.
It seemed, indeed, that there was some truth in what that man said, for Phyllis, before the ice pudding appeared, had come to the conclusion that George Holland was a very uninteresting sort of man.

To be sure, he had not talked about himself,--he was not such a fool as to do that: he had talked about her to the exclusion of almost every other topic--he had been wise enough to do that,--but in spite of all, he had not succeeded in arousing her interest.