Robert Kimberly and Doctor Hamilton were coming down the hall. "How delightful!" cried Imogene, advancing, "and I am so glad _you_’ve come, doctor."
Kimberly paused. He saw Alice lingering behind her hostess and the De Castros with Fritzie Venable coming downstairs.
"You have a dinner on," he said to Imogene.
"Just to give you a chance to show your indifference to surprises, Robert."
She introduced Doctor Hamilton to Alice. "These two are always together," she explained to Alice, lifting her fan toward the doctor and her brother-in-law. "But any hostess is fortunate to capture them like this, just the right moment."
Hamilton, greeting Alice, turned to Imogene: "What is this about your husband’s going to Labrador to-morrow?"
"He is going to-night. The salmon are doing something or other."
"Temporarily," said Imogene, pausing to give an order to a butler. Robert waited a moment for her attention. "I brought the doctor," he explained, "because I couldn’t leave him to dine alone. And now----"
"And now," echoed Imogene, "you see how beautifully it turns out. The Nelsons declined, Mr. MacBirney disappoints me, Charles goes fishing, and can’t get home to-night in time to dine. But there are still seven of us--what could be better? Mrs. De Castro will claim the doctor. Arthur won’t desert me, and, Robert, you may give an arm to Fritzie and one to Mrs. MacBirney."
There was now no escape from a smile, and Alice resolved to be loyal to her hostess. The party moved into the drawing-room.
Fritzie Venable tried to engage Kimberly in answering her questions about a saddle-horse that one of his grooms had recommended. Kimberly professed to know nothing about it. When it became apparent that he really did know nothing of the horse, Fritzie insisted on explaining.
Her spirited talk, whether concerning her own troubles or those of other people, was not uninteresting. Soon she talked more especially to Alice. Kimberly listened not inattentively but somewhat perfunctorily, and the manner, noticeable at their second meeting, again impressed Alice.
Whether it was a constraint or an unpleasing reserve was not clear; and it might have been the abstraction of a busied man, one of that type familiar in American life who are inherently interesting, but whose business affairs never wholly release their thought.