“So that’s why you didn’t come to meet me?”

“Pardon me, darling.”

Well, I do, but Mountfalcon doesn’t, and Lady Judith thinks you ought to have been there.”

“Ah, but my heart was with you!”

Richard put his hand to feel for the little heart:  her eyelids softened, and she ran away.

It is to say much of the dinner that Adrian found no fault with it, and was in perfect good-humour at the conclusion of the service.  He did not abuse the wine they were able to procure for him, which was also much.  The coffee, too, had the honour of passing without comment.  These were sound first steps toward the conquest of an epicure, and as yet Cupid did not grumble.

After coffee they strolled out to see the sun set from Lady Judith’s grounds.  The wind had dropped.  The clouds had rolled from the zenith, and ranged in amphitheatre with distant flushed bodies over sea and land:  Titanic crimson head and chest rising from the wave faced Hyperion falling.  There hung Briareus with deep-indented trunk and ravined brows, stretching all his hands up to unattainable blue summits.  North-west the range had a rich white glow, as if shining to the moon, and westward, streams of amber, melting into upper rose, shot out from the dipping disk.

“What Sandoe calls the passion-flower of heaven,” said Richard under his breath to Adrian, who was serenely chanting Greek hexameters, and answered, in the swing of the caesura, “He might as well have said cauliflower.”

Lady Judith, with a black lace veil tied over her head, met them in the walk.  She was tall and dark; dark-haired, dark-eyed, sweet and persuasive in her accent and manner.  “A second edition of the Blandish,” thinks Adrian.  She welcomed him as one who had claims on her affability.  She kissed Lucy protectingly, and remarking on the wonders of the evening, appropriated her husband.  Adrian and Lucy found themselves walking behind them.

The sun was under.  All the spaces of the sky were alight, and Richard’s fancy flamed.

“So you’re not intoxicated with your immense triumph this morning?” said Lady Judith.

“Don’t laugh at me.  When it’s over I feel ashamed of the trouble I’ve taken.  Look at that glory!—­I’m sure you despise me for it.”

“Was I not there to applaud you?  I only think such energies should be turned into some definitely useful channel.  But you must not go into the Army.”

“What else can I do?”

“You are fit for so much that is better.”

“I never can be anything like Austin.”

“But I think you can do more.”

“Well, I thank you for thinking it, Lady Judith.  Something I will do.  A man must deserve to live, as you say.

“Sauces,” Adrian was heard to articulate distinctly in the rear, “Sauces are the top tree of this science.  A woman who has mastered sauces sits on the apex of civilization.”