Her name was known to him as that of a woman
whom one or two of his "pals" began to call a "deuced pretty girl" but
his interest in her was not greatly awakened. The number of deuced pretty
girls that had been in his life, and in the lives of his pals, was
legion. They came and went like feathers dancing on the wind. The mere
report of them, therefore, casual and drifting, could not excite his
permanent attention, or fix their names and the record of their charms in
his somewhat treacherous memory. Lady Holme had not once mentioned the
American to him. She was a woman who knew how to be silent, and sometimes
she was silent by instinct without saying to herself why.
Lord Holme never appeared on her Wednesdays; and, indeed, those days were
a rather uncertain factor among the London joys. If Lady Holme was to be
found in her house at all, she was usually to be found on a Wednesday
afternoon. She herself considered that she was at home on Wednesdays, but
this idea of hers was often a mere delusion, especially when the season
had fully set in. There were a thousand things to be done. She frequently
forgot what the day of the week was. Unluckily she forgot it on the
Wednesday succeeding her invitation to Miss Schley. The American duly
turned up in Cadogan Square and was informed that Lady Holme was not to
be seen. She left her card and drove away in her coupe with a decidedly
stony expression upon her white face.
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