“It isn’t what I expect.  It’s what I deserve for marrying a glorious young creature like you.”

“Am I discontented?” she asked proudly.

“God bless you.  You’re as good as you’re beautiful,” he replied.

As she stooped to kiss him, the prayer of her heart was: 

“May he never know why I married him.”

His eyes, alight with love, followed her as she left the room.

Major Perigal received his guests in the drawing-room.  The first person whom Mavis encountered after she had greeted her host was Windebank.  She recalled that she had not seen him since her illness at Mrs Trivett’s, He had written to congratulate her on her marriage when she had come to stay with the Devitts; since then, she had not heard from him.

Although Mavis knew that she might see him to-night, she was so taken aback at meeting him that she could think of nothing to say.  He relieved her embarrassment by talking commonplace.

“Here’s someone who much wishes to meet you,” he said presently.  “It’s Sir William Ludlow; he served with your father in India.”

Mavis knew the name of Sir William Ludlow as that of a general with a long record of distinguished service.

When he was introduced by Windebank, Mavis saw that he had soldier written all over his wiry, spare person; she congratulated herself upon meeting a man who might talk of the stirring events in which he had taken so prominent a part.  He had only time to tell Mavis how she more resembled her mother than her father when a move was made for the dining-room.  Mavis was taken down by Windebank.

“Thank you,” she said in an undertone, when they had reached the landing.

“What for?”

“All you’ve done.”

He turned on her such a look of pain that she did not say any more.

Windebank sat on her right; General Sir William Ludlow on her left.  Directly opposite was a little pasty-faced woman with small, bright eyes.  Victoria, by virtue of her relationship to Major Perigal, faced her father-in-law at the bottom of the table; upon her right sat the most distinguished-looking man Mavis had ever seen.  Tall, finely proportioned, with noble, regular features, surmounted by grey hair, he suggested to Mavis a fighting bishop of the middle ages:  she wondered who he was.  The soldier on her left talked incessantly, but, to Mavis’s surprise, he made no mention of his campaigns; he spoke of nothing else but rose culture, his persistent ill-luck at flower shows, the unfairness of the judging.  The meal was long and, even to Mavis, to whom a dinner party was in the nature of an experience, tedious.

Infrequent relief was supplied by the pasty-faced woman opposite, who was the General’s wife; she did her best to shock the susceptibilities of those present by being in perpetual opposition to their stolid views.

An elderly woman, whose face showed the ravages of time upon what must have been considerable beauty (somehow she looked rather disreputable), had referred to visits she had paid, when in London for the season, to a sister who lived in Eccleston Square.