n they were pretty, appealed to Lawson as part of the appropriate
decoration of a table; but, much as he loved their charming society, he
loved his dinner more. He loved it with a certain pure extravagance,
illuminated by thought and imagination. Mrs. Hannay was one with him in
this affection. Her heart shared it; her fancy ministered to it, rising
higher and higher in unwearying flights. It was a link between them;
almost (so fine was the passion) an intellectual tie. But reticence was
not in Hannay's nature; and his emotion affected Anne very unpleasantly.
She missed the high lyric note in it. All epicurean pleasures, even so
delicate and fantastic a joy as Hannay's in his dinner, appeared gross
to Anne.

Majendie at the other end of the table caught sight of her detached,
unhappy look, and became detached and unhappy himself, till Mrs. Hannay
rallied him on his abstraction.

"If you _are_ in love, my dear Wallie," she whispered, "you needn't show
it so much. It's barely decent."

"Isn't it? Anyhow, I hope it's quite decently bare," he answered, tempted
by her folly. They were gay at Mrs. Hannay's end of the table. But Anne,
who watched her husband intently, looked in vain for that brilliance
which had distinguished him the other night, when he dined in Thurston
Square. These Hannays, she said to herself, made him dull.

Now, though Anne didn't in the least want to talk to Mr. Hannay, Mr.
Hannay displeased her by not wanting to talk more to her. Not that he
talked very much to anybody. Now and then the Canon's niece, Mildred
Wharton, the pretty girl on his left, moved him to a high irrelevance, in
those rare moments when she was not absorbed in Mr. Gorst. Pretty Mildred
and Mr. Gorst were flirting unabashed behind the roses, and it struck
Anne that the Canon kept an alarmed and watchful eye upon their
intercourse.

To Anne the dinner was intolerably long. She tried to be patient with it,
judging that its length was a measure of the height her hosts had risen
to. There she did them an injustice; for in the matter of a menu the
Hannays could not rise; for they lived habitually on a noble elevation.

At the other end of the table Mrs. Hannay called gaily on her guests
to eat and drink. But, when the wine went round, Anne noticed that she
whispered to the butler, and after that, the butler only made a feint
of filling his master's glass, and turned a politely deaf ear to his
protests. And then her voice rose.

"La