Then Richard Dawson looked at me; and I saw the stupefaction in his eyes.  I looked back at him, a direct glance of hatred, as I put my finger-tips gingerly on his sleeve.

“So!” he said in a whisper—­“so!  What a trick for Fate to play me!  And I have been wondering where on earth you had disappeared to.  Can you ever forgive me?”

“Never!” I answered, as I went down the marble staircase side by side with him.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE BARGAIN

The memory of that long, dragging, magnificent meal is like a nightmare to me.  I loathed it all, the vulgar display of gold plate—­I heard afterwards who it was that Garret Dawson had cheated out of it—­the number of men-servants, the exotic flowers that made the room sickly, the fruits out of their season.

We are simple people and not accustomed to such banquets; but I was surprised to see how greedy some of the ladies were over the turtle soup, the ortolans and truffles, all the fine things which must have been brought from far off for the dinner.  There was an incessant popping of champagne corks, and I wondered at the frequent refilling of the glasses.  I did not drink wine—­my grandmother did not consider it becoming in a girl—­and it seemed the hardest thing in the world to procure a glass of water, judging by the delay in bringing it when I asked for it.

Lady Ardaragh sat nearly opposite to us.  I noticed that she was very flushed and her eyes bright, and that she chattered and laughed a great deal.

I had made up my mind that I would not speak to Richard Dawson, although I was forced to sit by him, and that was a contact which I found most detestable.  But he would talk to me and sit close to me, and once when I had turned away from him and addressed Sir Arthur Ardaragh, who was on the other side of me, I caught my grandmother’s eye on me with a look of appeal.

I wished my godmother had been there.  She had been invited to the dinner, but she would not go nor consent to be civil to the Dawsons.  Nor would she believe that there was anything about Uncle Luke which might not come into the light of day.

“And if there could be,” she said proudly, “I would rather it was told than go in terror of the Dawsons.  I had as lief trust the world as them any day.”

After that glance of my grandmother I did not turn away again from Richard Dawson, much as I detested his closeness and his breath upon my cheek.  I thought the dinner would never be over.  As it went on I could not but feel that he was making himself and me conspicuous.  He drank a good deal of wine, and the more he drank the more he leant to me and tried to look into my eyes, so that I felt thoroughly sick and ashamed.  I could have pushed him away with both hands, but that was not possible in the publicity of a dinner-table.  He whispered in my ear, he leant to me, he behaved as an infatuated lover,