Arnold Jacks seemed to live so "largely," in contact with such great affairs and such eminent people.

One day, at length, a little paragraph in an evening journal announced that he was engaged to be married, and to a lady much in the light, the widowed daughter of a Conservative statesman.

It was only an hour or two after reading this news that Irene met him at dinner, and spoke with him of Hannaford; neither to Arnold himself nor to anyone else did she allude to the rumoured engagement; but that night she was not herself.
About lunch time on the next day she received a note from Jacks.

His attention had been drawn--he wrote--to an absurd bit of gossip connecting his name with that of a lady whose friend he was, and absolutely nothing more.

Would Miss Derwent, if occasion arose, do him the kindness to contradict this story in her circle?
He would be greatly obliged to her.
Irene was something more than surprised.