Then one day, a fortnight before the marriage, he met Quisanté as they were both leaving the House about four o'clock. On a sudden impulse he joined his rival. He knew his man; Quisanté received him with friendliness and even effusion, and invited him to join him in a call at Lady Attlebridge's. They went on together, Quisanté elated at this new evidence of his power to reconcile opposition and conciliate support, Marchmont filled with a vague painful curiosity and a desire to see the two together at the cost of any suffering the sight might bring him.
The drawing-room at Lady Attlebridge's was a double room; in one half May sat reading, in the other her mother dozed. May rose with a start as the men entered together; her face flushed as she greeted Marchmont and bade Quisanté go and pay his respects to her mother.
"I hardly expected ever to see you again," she said. "And I didn't expect Mr. Quisanté to bring you." Her tone was oddly expressive at once of pleasure and regret, of anticipation and fear. "Have you made friends?" she asked.
He answered under the impulse of his mood.
"We must make friends," he said, "or I shall never see any more of you."
"I thought you didn't want to." She liked him too well not to show a little coquetry, a little challenge.
"I thought so too, or tried to think so."
"I was sure you had deserted me. You said such--well, such severe things."
"Yes, here I am," said he, but he was grave and looked intently at her. She grew red again as she met his gaze, and frowned a little.
"I'm not sure I'm glad you've come after all," she said after a pause. "Why have you come? I don't quite understand."
"I've come to see you, to look on at your happiness," he answered.
They became silent. From the inner room they heard Lady Attlebridge's nervous efforts at conversation and Quisanté's fluent, too fluent, responses. He was telling the good lady about her great social influence, and, little as she liked him, she seemed to listen eagerly. Marchmont looked at May and smiled. He was disappointed when she returned his smile.
"He's a little too much of a politician, isn't he?" she asked.
Her refusal to perceive the insinuation of his smile made him ashamed of it.
"We all are, when we've something to get, I suppose," he said with a shrug.