His conversation proved limited, but strictly to
the point; he told Rachel what to eat, and once or twice what to avoid;
lavished impersonal praise upon one dish, impartial criticisms upon
another, and only spoke between the courses. It was a large
dinner-party; twenty-two sat down. Rachel was at last driven to glancing
at the other twenty.
To the man on her left she had not been introduced, but he had offered
one or two civil observations while Mr. Venables was better engaged;
and, after the second, Rachel had chanced to catch sight of the card
upon which his name had been inscribed. He was, it seemed, a Mr.
Langholm; and all at once Rachel leant back and looked at him. He was a
loose-limbed, round-shouldered man, with a fine open countenance, and a
great disorderly moustache; his hair might have been shorter, and his
dress-coat shone where it caught the light. Rachel put the screw upon
her courage.
"These cards," she said, with a glimpse of her own colonial self, "are
very handy when one hasn't been introduced. Your name is not very
common, is it?"
"Not very," he answered, "spelt like that."
"Yes it's spelt the same way as the Mr.
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