no objection this time, and even saluted me in a loutish manner; for I was the Captain’s friend, and as such claimed respect. Lancelot was leaning against the mantelpiece, and Marjorie and my Captain were sitting by plying [Pg 88]him with questions and listening eagerly to his answers. Lancelot had drawn off his travelling boots and spruced himself, and looked a comely fellow. When I entered he broke off in what he was saying to clasp my hand again, while the Captain rang for dinner, expressing as he did so the civilest regrets at my mother’s absence. Then we all sat to table and dined together in the pleasantest good-fellowship. [Pg 88] Never shall I forget that dinner, not if I live to be a hundred—which is not unlikely, for I come of a long-lived race by my mother’s side, and winds and waters have so toughened me that I ought to last with the best of my ancestors. There was a Latin tag Mr. Davies used to tease me with about the Feasts of the Gods. Feasts of the Gods, forsooth! They could not compare, I’ll dare wager, with that repast in the Dolphin Room of the Noble Rose, on that crisp spring day when I and the world were younger. I might well be excused, a raw provincial lad, if I did feel shyish in the presence of such gentlefolk. But they were such true gentlefolk that it was impossible for long not to feel at ease in their society. So when I learnt that Lancelot had not changed one whit in his love for me, and when I found that [Pg 89]not the Captain alone, but his beautiful niece too, did everything to make me feel happy and at home—why, it would have been churlish of me not to have aided their gentleness by making myself as agreeable as might be. [Pg 89] “He Broke Off in What He Was Saying To Clasp My Hand.” The Captain had so much to say of his scheme or dream, and we were so content to listen like good children, that we did not rise from table till nigh three o’clock. It was such a happy dream, and so feelingly depicted by the Captain, that it never occurred to me for a moment to doubt in any wise its feasibility, or to feel aught but sure that I was engaged in the greatest undertaking wherein man had ever shared. When we did part at last, on the understanding that I was to attend upon the Captain daily, I shook hands with Marjorie as with an old friend. I was for shaking hands with Lancelot, too, but he would not hear of it. He would walk home with me, he said; he could not lose me so soon after finding me again. So we issued out of the
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