But the execution of the ham was destined to postponement. Scarcely had he straightened himself to the task, than a quick bang of the outer door was followed by hasty steps across the hall, and the last member of the household appeared upon the scene. Almost before he saw her, Milbanke was conscious of her voice--high and clear with youthful vitality, softened and rendered piquant by native intonation. "Oh, father, such a gallop! Such fun! And I won. The bay cob was nowhere beside Polly. Larry was mad!" The string of words was poured forth in irresistible excitement before she had reached the door. Once inside, she paused abruptly--her whole animated face flushing. "Oh, I forgot!" she said in sudden naive dismay. She made a quaint picture as she stood there in the light of the candles and the fire--her slight, immature figure arrayed in a worn and old-fashioned riding habit, her hair covered by a boy's cloth cap, her fingers clasping one of her father's heavy hunting crops. But it was neither dress nor attitude that drew Milbanke's eyes from the task before him--that incontinently sent his mind back thirty years to the days when Denis Asshlin had seemed to stand on the threshold of life and look forth, as by Right Divine, upon the pageant of the future. There was little physical likeness between the girl brimming with youth and vitality and the hard, prematurely-aged man sitting at the head of the table; but the blood that glowed in the warm olive skin, the spirit that danced and gleamed in the hazel eyes, was the same blood and the same spirit that had captivated Milbanke more than a quarter of a century before. The unlooked-for sensation held him spell-bound. But almost rudely the spell was broken. Scarcely had Clodagh's exclamation of dismay escaped her, than Asshlin broke into one of his boisterous laughs. "Forgot, did you?" he cried. "Well, 'twas like you. Come here!" He put out his hand, and as he did so, a sudden expression of pride and affection softened his hard face. "Here's the wildest scapegrace of an Asshlin you've met yet, James," he said. "Shake hands with him, Clo!" he added in a different voice. "He's a symbol, if you only knew it. He stands for the great glory we must all leave behind us. The glory of youth!" His voice sank suddenly to a lower key, and he raised his glass. "Go on, child!" he added more quickly. "Shake hands with him; tell him he's welcome." But Clodagh's flow of speech had been silenced. With a suggestion of the shyness that marked her sister, she came round the table as Milbanke rose. She made no remark as she proffered her hand, and she did not smile as Nance had done. Instead, her bright eyes scanned his face with a quick, questioning interest. In return, he looked at her clear skin, her level eyebrows and proudly held head; and his awkwardness vanished as he took the slight muscular hand still cold from the night mist. "How d'you do?" he said. "I've been hearing of you."