There was stillness for some time.  This part of the house seemed quite empty, save for one buzzing fly, which he or Mary had let in.  The little housekeeper was very particular about flies in summer, every window and chimney-opening being wire-netted, every door labelled with a printed request to the user to shut it; and his dazed mind occupied itself with the idea of how this insect would have distressed her if she had not had so much else to think of.  He had an impulse to hunt it, for her sake, through the green-shadowed space in which it careered in long tacks with such energy and noise; but, standing up, he was seized with a stronger impulse to leave the house forthwith, and everything in it.  He wanted liberty to consider his position and further proceedings before he faced the family.

As he approached the door, it was opened from without.  Deb stood on the threshold, pale, proud, with tight lips and sombre eyes.  She bowed to him as only she could bow to a person she was offended with.

“Would you kindly see my father in his office, Mr Carey?” she inquired, with stony formality.  “He wishes to speak to you.”

“Certainly, Miss Deborah,” he replied, not daring to preface the words with even a “How-do-you-do”.  “I want to see him—­I want to see him particularly.”

Deb swept round to lead the way downstairs.

An embarrassing march it was, tandem fashion, through the long passages of the rambling house.  While trying to arrange his thoughts for the coming interview, Captain Carey studied her imperious back and shoulders, the haughty poise of her head; and though he was not the one that had behaved badly, he had never felt so small.  At the door of the morning-room she dismissed him with a jerk of the hand.  “You know your way,” said she, and vanished.

“She is more beautiful than ever,” was his poignant thought, as he walked away from her, and from all the glorious life that she suggested —­to such a dull and common doom.

Mr Pennycuick, at first, was a terrible figure, struggling between his father-fury and his old-gentleman instincts of courtesy to a guest.

“Sir,” said he, “I am sorry that I have to speak to you under my own roof; in another place I could better have expressed what I have to say —­”

But before he could get to the gist of the matter, Mary intervened.

“Miss Keene has some refreshment for Mr Carey in the dining-room,” she said.  “And, father, I want, if you please, to have a word with you first.”  She had recovered self-possession, and wore a rigid, determined air, contrasting with the sailor’s bewilderment, which was so great that he found himself driven from the office before he had made up his mind whether he ought to go or stay.

He sat down to his unnecessary meal, and tried to eat, while an embarrassed maiden lady talked platitudes to him.  Didn’t he find it very dusty in town?  Miss Keene, knitting feverishly, was anxious to be informed.  And didn’t he think the country looked well for the time of year?