A few minutes later she passed into the room where Peter's friends were waiting. Atterbury claimed her at once. Then it came to a meeting. She caught Peter in the flash of his discovery. The sudden glory of his lighted face blinded her to the years between them. She felt her pulses leap eagerly at her sovereign peace, but outwardly she was still. She calmly ignored his recognition. She bowed to him as a stranger, and passed in to dinner with Atterbury. XLII Peter at dinner was next Vivette, and Atterbury, with Miranda, was at the far end of a long table. He heard only snatches of their talk, enough to show that Miranda entirely outmatched him in conversation and address. She was complete mistress of herself. She had put away all sense of crisis, ignoring the tumult of her late encounter. Atterbury loved all things French, and Peter had many opportunities to notice their enthusiastic agreement. Peter could not so well recover. Miranda's return had blotted out the last five years. He saw no change in her. She was the woman he had always divined her to be. He had never seen in her the awkward girl whose disappearance Mrs. Paragon had noted. Her refusal to accept him at once and take up their life from the point at which they had parted became increasingly absurd as in numberless gestures, in the play of her spirit made visible, he recognised ever more clearly the girl he had lost. His wonder grew, equally, at the way in which for five years he had ignored her existence. These years now seemed unreal. Surely he had loved her always, and always had been full of her. If only he called to her in the old familiar way, surely she would no longer play the stranger. She would recognise their bond, and all this pageant, holding them absurdly apart, would disappear. Miranda knew how Peter watched her; how he was living himself back into the past; how he was seeking for a sign that she admitted their union. But she would not yet confess that between them a secret current ran even as she talked and laughed and accepted Atterbury's vivacious gallantry. She had yet to hear from Peter why for five years he had made no sign. He deserved at any rate to be put on his defence. Peter's wonderful last adventure returned upon him in waves of uphappy consciousness, to be decently put away in heroic efforts to entertain his guests, and be the companion of Vivette. But it was always with a start of the mind that he returned to his duties.