Only two persons seemed unmoved. One was Bartley Bradstone, who sat in half-sullen, half-envious silence, taking no part in the conversation beyond a monosyllabic response, and inwardly and palpably chafing at the success the newcomer was obviously making. The other was Olivia. At first she had smiled with the rest, but presently she happened to glance round the _épergne_ which stood between her and Mr. Faradeane, and at that instant she caught his face off its guard, as it were, and saw a strange sadness falling like a shadow on his eyes and hovering about his lips. It was gone in a moment, but its remembrance haunted her, and she knew that the wit and the humor and the light-heartedness were assumed, and magnificently assumed, to hide some secret sorrow. And as she listened as he told a story which convulsed Bertie and Annie and Mary, and made the squire laugh the hearty laugh which was so rare with him, there flashed upon her the well-known anecdote of the comedian who succeeded in convulsing a theatre with laughter while his thoughts were fixed upon his favorite child, who lay dying while he played. “A most delightful man!” exclaimed Aunt Amelia, as the ladies filed into the drawing-room. “I never laughed so much in my life.” “Nor I!” exclaimed Mary and Annie. “And he scarcely smiled himself. Did you see the squire laugh, Olly, dear? Why, he isn’t at all what I fancied he would be! I’m not a bit afraid of him. But you didn’t seem so amused, dear; you didn’t laugh scarcely at all. Why was that?” and she wound her arm round Olivia’s waist. “It’s because I’m so stupid,” replied Olivia. “You must make allowances, Annie.” Meanwhile the butler--who had only succeeded in maintaining his solemn gravity through the dinner by going out into the hall and getting rid of his laughter--had placed the Hawkwood port on the table, and left the gentlemen to discuss it. “You have a wonderful memory, Faradeane----No, that’s unfair, a wonderful vein of humor, I ought to say,” said the squire. Faradeane, who had sunk into his chair after the ladies’ exodus, looked up with a slight start. “Your first remark is the right one,” he said; “I have a good memory.” “Yes,” said Bartley Bradstone. “It reminds me of Russell, who said once in the House that ‘a man was indebted to his memory for his wit, and to his imagination for his facts.’” There was a moment of ghostly silence; then Faradeane said, with perfect ease and amiability: “Quite right, Mr. Bradstone, your quotation hits me to a nicety. I have a good memory.” “I’ve heard most of the stories a score of times,” said Bartley Bradstone, filling his glass. “And I haven’t heard one,” said the squire; “but I have been out of the world so long.” “You couldn’t have heard them, squire,” said Bertie, warmly, “seeing that Faradeane invented them on the spot.” “Not all, Cherub,” put in Faradeane, with a faint smile.