The necessity on her part of presenting Ashley to her father and offering him lunch brought into play those social resources that were as second nature to all three.  It was difficult to think the bottom could be out of life while going through a carefully chosen menu and drinking an excellent vin de Graves at a table meticulously well appointed.  To escape the irony of this situation they took refuge in the topics that came readiest, the novelty to Ashley of the outward aspect of American things keeping them on safe ground till the meal was done.  It was a relief to both men that Guion could make his indisposition an excuse for retiring again to his room.

It was a relief to Olivia, too.  For the first time in her life she had to recognize her father as insupportable to any one but herself and Peter Davenant.  Ashley did his best to conceal his repulsion; she was sure of that; he only betrayed it negatively in a tendency to ignore him.  He neither spoke nor listened to him any more than he could help.  By keeping his eyes on Olivia he avoided looking toward him.  The fact that Guion took this aversion humbly, his head hanging and his attention given to his plate, did not make it the less poignant.

All the same, as soon as they were alone in the dining-room the old sense of intimacy, of belonging to each other, suddenly returned.  It returned apropos of nothing and with the exchange of a glance.  There was a flash in his eyes, a look of wonder in hers—­and he had taken her, or she had slipped, into his arms.

And yet when a little later he reverted to the topic of the morning and said, “As things are now, I really don’t see why we shouldn’t be married on the 28th—­privately, you know,” her answer was, “What did you think of papa?”

Though he raised his eyebrows in surprise that she should introduce the subject, he managed to say, “He seems pretty game.”

“He does; but I dare say he isn’t as game as he looks.  There’s a good deal before him still.”

“If we’re married on the 28th he’d have one care the less.”

“Because I should be taken off his hands.  I’m afraid that’s not the way to look at it.  The real fact is that he’d have nobody to help him.”

“I’ve two months’ leave.  You could do a lot for him in that time.”

She bent over her piece of work.  It was the sofa-cushion she had laid aside on the day when she learned from Davenant that her father’s troubles were like Jack Berrington’s.  They had come back for coffee to the rustic seat on the lawn.  For the cups and coffee service a small table had been brought out beside which she sat.  Ashley had so far recovered his sang-froid as to be able to enjoy a cigar.

“Would you be very much hurt,” she asked, without raising her head, “if I begged you to go back to England without our being married at all?”

“Oh, but I say!”

The protest was not over-strong.  He was neither shocked nor surprised.  A well-bred woman, finding herself in such trouble as hers, would naturally offer him some way of escape from it.