Sir Thomas said grace with great gravity and signed himself reverently before he sat down.  There was a little reading first of the Scriptures and a commentary on it, and then as dinner went on Ralph began to attend less and less to his hostess, who, indeed appeared wholly absorbed in domestic details of the table and with whispering severely to the servants behind her hand, and to listen and look towards the further end where Sir Thomas sat in his tall chair, his flapped cap on his head, and talked to his daughters on either side.  Mr. Roper, the man who had come in with Mrs. More, was sitting opposite Ralph, and seemed to be chiefly occupied in listening too.  A bright-looking tall girl, whom her father had introduced by the name of Cecily, sat between Ralph and her father.

“Not at all,” cried Sir Thomas, in answer to something that Ralph did not catch, “nothing of the kind!  It was Juno that screamed.  Argus would not condescend to it.  He was occupied in dancing before the bantams.”

Ralph lost one of the few remarks that Mrs. More addressed to him, in wondering what this meant, and the conversation at the other end swept round a corner while he was apologising.  When he again caught the current Sir Thomas was speaking of wherries.

“I would love to row a wherry,” he said.  “The fellows do not know their fortune; they might lead such sweet meditative lives; they do not, I am well aware, for I have never heard such blasphemy as I have heard from wherrymen.  But what opportunities are theirs!  If I were not your father, my darling, I would be a wherryman. Si cognovisses et tu quae ad pacem tibi!  Mr. Torridon, would you not be a wherryman if you were not Mr. Torridon?”

“I thought not this morning,” said Ralph, “as I came here.  It seemed hot rowing against the stream.”

“It is part of the day’s work,” said More.  “When I was Chancellor I loved nothing more than a hot summer’s day in Court, for I thought of my cool garden where I should soon be walking.  I must show you the New Building after dinner, Mr. Torridon.”

Cecily and Margaret presently had a short encounter across the table on some subject that Ralph did not catch, but he saw Margaret on the other side flush up and bring her lips sharply together.  Sir Thomas leapt into the breach.

“Unde leves animae tanto caluere furore?” he cried, and glanced up at Ralph to see if he understood the quotation, as the two girls dropped their eyes ashamed.

“Pugnavare pares, succubuere pares,” said Ralph by a flash of inspiration, and looking at the girls.

Sir Thomas’s eyes shone with pleasure.

“I did not know you were such a treasure, Mr. Torridon.  Now, Master Cromwell could not have done that.”

There fell a silence as that name was spoken, and all at the table eyed Ralph.

“He was saying as much to me the other day,” went on Ralph, excited by his success.  “He told me you knew Horace too well.”