Major Shirley fell as usual to Mrs. Randal, over which circumstance Anne, catching a tragic glance from the latter, failed somewhat conspicuously to repress a smile.

“Yes, it’s mighty funny, isn’t it?” said Nap, and with a sharp start she discovered that he was seated upon her right.

“I—­didn’t see you,” she faltered.

“No?” he said coolly.  “Well, it’s all right.  I was told to sit here—­obviously decreed by the gods.  You’ll think me uncanny if I tell you that it was just this that I came for.”

“You are uncanny,” she said.

He made her a brief bow.  It seemed to her that a mocking spirit gleamed in his eyes.  She had never felt less confident of him, less at her ease with him, than at that moment.  She felt as if in some subtle fashion, wholly beyond her comprehension, he were playing some deep-laid game, as if he were weaving some intricate web too secret and too intangible to be understood or grappled with.  Upon one point only was she quite clear.  He would suffer no reference to their last meeting.  Whatever the effect of that terrible punishment upon him, he did not choose that she should see it.  She had seen him in the utmost extremity of his humiliation, but she should never see the scars that were left.

This much of his attitude she could understand, and understanding could pardon that part which baffled her.  But she could not feel at her ease.

“And so you are afraid,” said Nap.  “That’s a new thing for you.”

She glanced round the table.  In the general hubbub of talk they were as isolated as though they were actually alone together.

“No,” she said.  “Why should I be afraid?  But—­I feel as if I am talking to—­a stranger.”

“Perhaps you are,” said Nap.

He uttered a laugh she could not fathom, and then with a certain recklessness:  “Permit me to present to your majesty,” he said, “the Knave of Diamonds!”

There was that in his tone that hurt her vaguely, little as she understood it.  She smiled with a hint of wistfulness.

“Surely I have met him before!” she said.

“Without knowing him,” said Nap.

“No,” she maintained.  “I have known him for a long while now.  I believe him to be my very good friend.”

“What?” he said.

She glanced at him, half startled by the brief query; but instantly she looked away again with a curious, tingling sense of shock.  For it was to her as though she had looked into the heart of a consuming fire.

“Aren’t you rather behind the times?” he drawled.  “That was—­as you say—­a long while ago.”

The shock passed, leaving her strangely giddy, as one on the edge of inconceivable depth.  She could say no word in answer.  She was utterly and hopelessly at a loss.

With scarcely a pause Nap turned to Violet Shirley, who was seated on his right, and plunged without preliminary into a gay flirtation to which all the world was at liberty to listen if it could not approve.  Ralph Waring, thus deprived of his rightful partner, solaced himself with Mrs. Randal, who was always easy to please; and the major on her other side relapsed into bearish gloom.