Or perhaps they were talking of him--Drake. Did they miss him? At the
thought, he was reminded of the absurd song--"Will They Miss Me When I'm
Gone?" And, with something like a blush for his sentimental weakness, as
he mentally termed it, he sprang up and took his letters. They consisted
mostly of bills and invitations. He chucked the first aside and glanced
at the others; both were distasteful to him. He felt as if he should
like to cut the world forever.
And yet that wouldn't do. Everybody would say that he was completely
knocked over by the ruin of his prospects, and that he had run away. He
couldn't stand that. He had always been accustomed to facing the music,
however unpleasant it might be; and he would face it now. Besides, it
would never do to sit there moping, and wishing himself back at Shorne
Mills; because that was just what he was doing.
He turned over the gilt-edged cards and the scented notes--there seemed
to be a great many people in town, notwithstanding the deadness of the
season--and he selected one from a certain Lady Northgate. She was an
old friend of his, and she had written him a pretty little note, asking
him to a reception for that night. It was just the little note which a
thorough woman of the world would write to a man whom she liked, and who
had struck a streak of bad luck. Most of Drake's acquaintances who were
in town would be there; and it would be a good opportunity of facing the
situation and accepting more or less sincere sympathy with a good grace.
It was a fine night; and he walked to the Northgates' in Grosvenor
Square; and thought of the evening he and Nell had sailed in to Shorne
Mills with the lights peeping out through the trees, and the stars
twinkling in the deep-blue sky. It already seemed years since that
night, but he saw the girl's face as clearly as if she were walking
beside him now.
The face vanished as he went up the broad staircase and into the
brilliantly lighted room; and Shorne Mills seemed farther away, and all
that had happened there like a dream, as Lady Northgate held out her
hand and smiled at him.
She was an old friend, and many years his senior; but of course she
looked young--no one in society gets old nowadays--and she greeted him
with a cheerful badinage, which, however skillfully, suggested sympathy.
"It was a good boy to come!" she said. "I scarcely half expected you,
and Harry offered to bet me ten to one in my favorite gloves that you
wouldn't; but, somehow, I thought you would turn up. I wrote such a
pretty note, didn't I?"