This eBook was produced by Dagny, dagnypg@yahoo.com
and David Widger, widger@cecomet.net
BOOK IV.
CHAPTER I.
IT is somewhat more than a year and a half since Kenelm Chillingly
left England, and the scene now is in London, during that earlier and
more sociable season which precedes the Easter holidays,--season in
which the charm of intellectual companionship is not yet withered away
in the heated atmosphere of crowded rooms,--season in which parties
are small, and conversation extends beyond the interchange of
commonplace with one's next neighbour at a dinner-table,--season in
which you have a fair chance of finding your warmest friends not
absorbed by the superior claims of their chilliest acquaintances.
There was what is called a /conversazione/ at the house of one of