“I have,” he said; and then he turned from her to the two old men who were talking drowsily in voices that sounded as far off to Stephen as the murmuring of bees in summer meadows.  He knew that it was real, that it was the life he had always lived, and yet he couldn’t get rid of the feeling that Corinna and the two old men and the charming surroundings were all part of a play, and that in a little while he should go out of the theatre and step back among the sordid actualities.

“The General and I are having our little chat before dinner,” said Judge Page, a sufficiently ornamental old gentleman to have decorated any world or any fireside—­imposing and distinguished as a portrait by Sir Thomas Lawrence, with a crown of silvery hair and the shining dark eyes of his daughter.  He still carried himself, for all his ironical comment, like an ambassador of the romantic school.  “It is a sad day for your fighting man,” he concluded gaily, “when the only stimulant he can get is the conversation of an old fogy like me.”

“Your fighting man,” old General Powhatan Plummer, who hadn’t smelt powder for more than half a century, chuckled as he always did at the shrewd and friendly pleasantries of the Judge.  He was a jocular, tiresome, gregarious soul, habitually untidy, creased and rumpled, who was always thirsty, but who, as the Judge was accustomed to reply when Corinna remonstrated, “would divide his last julep with a friend.”  The men had been companions from boyhood, and were still inseparable.  For the same delusion makes strange friendships, and the General, in spite of his appearance of damaged reality, also inhabited that enchanted fairy-ring where no fact ever entered.

With the bowl of marigolds in her hands, Corinna came over to the tea-table and stood smiling dreamily at Stephen.  The firelight dancing over her made a riot of colour, and she looked the image of happiness, though the young man knew that the ephemeral illusion was created by the red of her gown and the burnished gold of the flowers.

“John Benham sent them to me because I praised his speech,” she said.  “Wasn’t it nice of him?”

“He always does nice things when one doesn’t expect them,” he answered.

Corinna laughed.  “Is it because they are nice that he does them?” she inquired with a touch of malice.  “Or because they are not expected?”

“I didn’t mean that.”  There was a shade of confusion in Stephen’s tone.  “Benham is my friend—­my best friend almost though he is so much older.  There isn’t a man living whom I admire more.”

“Yes, I know,” replied Corinna; and then—­was it in innocence or in malice?—­she asked sweetly:  “Have you seen Alice Rokeby this winter?”

For an instant Stephen gazed at her in silence.  Was it possible that she had not heard the gossip about Benham and Mrs. Rokeby?  Was she trying to mislead him by an appearance of flippancy?  Or was there some deeper purpose, some serious attempt to learn the truth beneath her casual question?