“All right.  I left her just going to feed from a tray in her little room.”

“Rosamund always loved having a meal on a tray,” said Bruce Evelin.  “She’s a big child still.  But enthusiasts never really grow up, luckily for them.”

“Dinner is served, sir.”

“Daventry, will you take Beatrice?”

As Dion followed with Bruce Evelin, he said: 

“So you’ve got Daventry a case!”

“Yes.”

Bruce Evelin lowered his voice.

“He’s a good fellow and a clever fellow, but he’s got to work.  He’s been slacking for years.”

Dion understood.  Bruce Evelin wished Beatrice to marry Daventry.

“He respects you tremendously, sir.  If any one can make him work, you can.”

“I’m going to,” returned Bruce Evelin, with his quiet force.  “He’s got remarkable ability, and the slacker—­well——­”

He looked at Dion with his dark, informed eyes, in which knowledge of the world and of men always seemed sitting.

“I can bear with bad energy almost more easily and comfortably than with slackness.”

During dinner, without seeming to, Dion observed and considered Beatrice and Daventry, imagining them wife and husband.  He felt sure Daventry would be very happy.  As to Beatrice, he could not tell.  There was always in Beatrice’s atmosphere, or nearly always, a faint suggestion of sadness which, curiously, was not disagreeable but attractive.  Dion doubted whether Daventry could banish it.  Perhaps no one could, and Daventry had, perhaps, that love which does not wish to alter, which says, “I love you with your little sadness—­keep it.”

Daventry was exceptionally animated at dinner.  The prospect of actually appearing in court as counsel in a case had evidently worked upon him like a powerful tonic.  Always able to be amusing when he chose, he displayed to-night a new something—­was it a hint of personal dignity?—­which Dion had not hitherto found in him.  “Dear old Daventry,” the agreeable, and obviously clever, nobody, who was a sure critic of others, and never did anything himself, who blinked at moments with a certain feebleness, and was too fond of the cozy fireside, or the deep arm-chairs of his club, had evidently caught hold of the flying skirts of his self-respect, and was thoroughly enjoying his capture.  He did not talk very much to Beatrice, but it was obvious that he was at every moment enjoying her presence, her attention; when she listened earnestly he caught her earnestness and it seemed to help him; when she laughed, in her characteristic delicate way,—­her laugh seemed almost wholly of the mind,—­he beamed with a joy that was touching in a man of his type because it was so unself-conscious.  His affection for Beatrice had performed the miracle of drawing him out of the prison of awareness in which such men as he dwell.  To-night he was actually unobservant.  Dion knew this by the changed expression of his eyes.  Even Beatrice he was not observing; he was just feeling what she was, how she was.  For once he had passed beyond the narrow portals and had left satire far behind him.