"He makes himself at home in my house," thought the millionaire. "_He_ gives his orders to the upholsterers, I'll warrant, though they'll send their bills to me. _He_ chooses the piece that is to be played; _he_ secures the services of the band. And I know that he hates me, and he knows that I hate him; and yet we smirk and grin at each other, like a couple of clowns at a fair. If that knife had struck nearer home, and had done for him altogether, it couldn't have been much worse for me than it was. I dare say I should only have had a twelvemonth's imprisonment or so, and I shouldn't have had him turning up on my wedding tour, and taking possession of my house." The comedy came to an end at last. It had seemed _very_ long to Cecil. The German diplomatist had talked to her between the acts, and Major Gordon had talked to Miss Evershed. After the comedy there was an adjournment to the dining-room, for a stand-up supper,--one of those suppers which admit of such ravages in stealthy middle-aged devourers, who prowl from table to table and from sideboard to buffet, sipping of one sweet and then flying to the rest; consuming unknown quantities of white soup and lobster-salad; taking now a seven-and-sixpenny peach, now a plate of plovers' eggs embedded in savoury jelly; pausing here to quaff sparkling hock, and lingering there to imbibe dry champagne. Such a supper-room affords a superb platform for flirtation; and the young ladies staying in the house, and the young lady-visitors of the evening, did considerable execution among the Plungers, recently returned from the pale beauties of Hindostan, and ready to fall victims to the rosy brightness of fresh young British belles. Cecil saw that Hector Gordon was graver and more subdued than his brother officers; but she saw also that he talked to Miss Evershed very much as he had talked to herself in the first days of their acquaintance at Fortinbras, and that he was undisturbed by any memory of the past. She felt that she had reason to be very glad of this. Any apparent consciousness of that brief romance by the sea-shore on his part must have been unspeakably painful to her now; and yet--and yet--she felt, at the same time, that Hector Gordon's calm indifference did not give her so much pleasure as it should have done.