So they stayed, and beguiled Mr. Hamleigh to the billiard room, where they both played against him, and were beaten--after which Mopsy entreated him to give her a lesson in the art, declaring that he played divinely--in such a quite style--so very superior to Jack's or Mr. Tregonell's, though both those gentlemen were good players. Angus consented, kindly enough, and gave both ladies the most careful instruction in the art of making pockets and cannons; but he was wondering all the while how Christabel was spending her morning, and thinking how sweet it would have been to have strolled with her across the hills to the quiet little church in the dingle where he had once dreamed they two might be married. "I was a fool to submit to delay," he thought, remembering all the pain and madness of the past. "If I had insisted on being married here--and at once--how happy--oh God!--how happy we might have been. Well, it matters little, now that the road is so near the end. I suppose the dismal close would have come just as soon if my way of life had been strewed with flowers." It was luncheon-time before the Miss Vandeleurs consented to release him. Once having got him in their clutch he was as firmly held as if he had been caught by an octopus. Christabel wondered a little that Angus Hamleigh should find amusement for his morning in the billiard room, and in such society. "Perhaps, after all, the Miss Vandeleurs are the kind of girls whom all gentlemen admire," she said to Jessie. "I know I thought it odd that Leonard should admire them; but you see Mr. Hamleigh is equally pleased with them." "Mr. Hamleigh is nothing of the kind," answered Jessie in her usual decided way. "But Dop is setting her cap at him in a positively disgraceful manner--even for Dop." "Pray don't call her by that horrid name." "Why not; it is what her brother and sister call her, and it expresses her so exactly." Mr. Hamleigh and the two damsels now appeared, summoned by the gong, and they all went into the dining-room. It was quite a merry luncheon party. Care seemed to have no part in that cheery circle. Angus had made up his mind to be happy, and Christabel was as much at ease with him as she had been in those innocent, unconscious days when he first came to Mount Royal. Dopsy was in high spirits, thinking that she was fast advancing towards victory. Mr. Hamleigh had been so kind, so attentive, had done exactly what she had asked him to do, and how could she doubt that he had consulted his own pleasure in so doing. Poor Dopsy was accustomed to be treated with scant ceremony by her brother's acquaintance, and it did not enter into her mind that a man might be bored by her society, and not betray his weariness. After luncheon Jessie, who was always energetic, suggested a walk. The threatened bad weather had not come: it was a greyish afternoon, sunless but mild.