“It is so wonderful that I’m not more tired after all that bolting and jolting, and you know I felt that headache coming all the time. . . only just kept it at bay. But really, now, I’m quite hungry; it’s strange. I never could eat anything in Epsom. What is there?” The waiter handed her the card. She looked up at him with a smile. “Oh! no consommé! thank you. Yes, Filet de sole and Poularde braisée—oh! and Grouse à la broche—of course—just in time, James, to-day’s only the fifteenth. Cerises Beatrice—Friandises—oh! delightful! the very thing.” “Bannister knows what to give us,” he said, turning to her. She settled back in her seat with a little purr of pleasure. “I hope the girls had what they wanted. Little dears! I’m afraid they were dreadfully tired.” He watched her curiously. There had been so many evenings like this—evenings when those around him would have counted him a lucky fellow; and yet he knew that he might have been a brick wall and she would have talked in the same way. He judged her by her eyes—eyes that looked through him, past him, quite coldly, with no expression and no emotion. She simply did not realise that he was there, and he suddenly felt cold and miserable and very lonely. Oh! if only these people round him knew, if they could only see as he saw. But perhaps they were, many of them, in the same position. He watched them curiously. Men and women laughing and chatting with that intimate note that seemed to mean so much and might, as he knew well, mean so little. Everybody seemed very happy; perhaps they were. Oh! he was an old, middle-aged marplot, a kill-joy, a skeleton at the feast. “Isn’t it jolly, dear?” he said, laughing across the table; “this grouse is perfection.” “Tell me,” she said, with that little wave of her wrist towards him that he knew so well—“tell me where the Gales are. I don’t suppose you know, though, but we might guess.” “I do know,” he answered, laughing; “young Gale came and spoke to me just before I came up to dress. He seemed a nice young fellow. He came up and said something about the rooms—he had heard you speaking to Bannister. They came in just now; a fine-looking elderly man, a lady with beautiful white hair, a pretty girl in pink.” “Oh! of course! I noticed them! Oh, yes! one could tell they were somebody.” She glanced round the room. “Yes, there they are, by the wall at the back; quite a lovely girl!” She looked at them curiously. “Oh, you spoke to young Gale, did you? He looks quite a nice boy. I hope they have liked the rooms, and, after all, ours aren’t bad, are they? Really, I’m not sure that in some ways——” She rattled on, praising the grouse, the bread sauce, the vegetables. She speculated on people and made little jokes about them, and he threw the ball back again, gaily, merrily, light-heartedly.