He accepted the invitation and many others.
People dined early in those simple days and the hours he spent in
the most natural and agreeable society he had ever entered did not
interfere with his work. Sometimes he talked, at others merely
listened with a pleasant sense of relaxation to the chatter of pretty
women; with whom he was quite willing to flirt as long as there was
no hint of the heavy vail. He thought it quite possible he should
fall in love with and marry one of these vivacious pretty girls; when
his future was assured in the city of his enthusiastic adoption.
He met Madeleine at all these gatherings, but it so happened that he
never sat beside her and he had no taste for kettledrums or balls. He
thought her very lovely to look at and wondered why so young and
handsome a woman with a notoriously faithful husband should have so
sad an expression. Possibly because it rather became her style of
beauty.
He saw a good deal of Dr. Talbot at the Club however and asked them
both to one of the little dinners in his rooms with which he paid his
social debts. These dinners were very popular, for he was a
connoisseur in wines, the dinner was sent from a French restaurant,
and he was never more entertaining than at his own table. His guests
were as carefully assorted as his wines, and if he did not know
intuitively whose minds and tastes were most in harmony, or what lady
did not happen to be speaking to another at the moment, he had always
the delicate hints of Mrs.
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