His acquaintance with Randal ripened rapidly into friendship.

But his relations with Herbert made no advance toward intimacy: there was a gentlemanlike cordiality between them, and nothing more.
At seven o'clock the two friends sat at a snug little table, in the private room of a hotel, with an infinite number of questions to ask of each other, and with nothing to interrupt them but a dinner of such extraordinary merit that it insisted on being noticed, from the first course to the last.
Randal began.

"Before we talk of anything else," he said, "tell me about Catherine and the child.

Where are they ?" "On their way to England, after a residence in Germany." "And the old lady ?" "Mrs.Presty has been staying with friends in London." "What! have they parted company?
Has there been a quarrel ?" "Nothing of the sort; a friendly separation, in the strictest sense of the word.

Oh, Randal, what are you about?
Don't put pepper into this perfect soup.