And they both laughed.
It was perhaps the reaction of her gaiety that recalled to her mind her telegram.

The telegram had been her promised answer after she had had time to consider a suggestion made to her by a Mr.Howard Quarrier.

The last week at Shotover permitted reflection; and while her telegram was no complete answer to the suggestion he had made, it contained material of interest in the eight words: "I will consider your request when you arrive.
"I wonder if you know Howard Quarrier ?" she said.
After a second's hesitation he replied: "Yes--a little.

Everybody does." "You do know him ?" "Only at--the club." "Oh, the Lenox ?" "The Lenox--and the Patroons." Preoccupied, driving with careless, almost inattentive perfection, she thought idly of her twenty-three years, wondering how life could have passed so quickly leaving her already stranded on the shoals of an engagement to marry Howard Quarrier.

Then her thoughts, errant, wandered half the world over before they returned to Siward; and when at length they did, and meaning to be civil, she spoke again of his acquaintance with Quarrier at the Patroons Club--the club itself being sufficient to settle Siward's status in every community.
"I'm trying to remember what it is I have heard about you," she continued amiably; "you are--" An odd expression in his eyes arrested her--long enough to note their colour and expression--and she continued, pleasantly; "-- you are Stephen Siward, are you not?
You see I know your name perfectly well--" Her straight brows contracted a trifle; she drove on, lips compressed, following an elusive train of thought which vaguely, persistently, coupled his name with something indefinitely unpleasant.