CHAPTER XIII.
AN "AT HOME" On Tuesday morning he wandered off to Paddington, hoping for a chance view of her on her way down to Holm Oaks; but the sense of the ridiculous, on which he had been nurtured, was strong enough to keep him from actually entering the station and lurking about until she came.
With a pang of disappointment he retraced his steps from Praed Street to the Park, and once there tried no further to waylay her.

He paid a round of calls in the afternoon, mostly on her relations; and, seeking out Aunt Charlotte, he dolorously related his encounter in the Row.

But she found it "rather nice," and on his pressing her with his views, she murmured that it was "quite romantic, don't you know." "Still, it's very hard," said Shelton; and he went away disconsolate.
As he was dressing for dinner his eye fell on a card announcing the "at home" of one of his own cousins.

Her husband was a composer, and he had a vague idea that he would find at the house of a composer some quite unusually free kind of atmosphere.

After dining at the club, therefore, he set out for Chelsea.