Her husband, meanwhile, at the other end of the table had proved but a tame and uninteresting companion to Mrs. Hoope-Arkwright. His attention throughout the meal had been fixed at every possible moment on Gundred’s right-hand partner. For whole long minutes he scanned that keen, handsome face. Where had he seen it before? Why did he find it so very much more attractive than even its own intrinsic beauty warranted? He stared at it, analyzed it, dissected its features. No, collectively and separately they were quite new to him. He grew more and more confident that he had never met the young fellow before; otherwise he must have remembered him. It was not a face to be forgotten. No, he had never seen it before. And yet the imperious conviction grew and deepened in him that that face was worn by no stranger--that he and the boy at the end of the table were in some mysterious way the oldest of intimate friends. Many years before he had felt the same passion of recognition when he at last understood what it was he felt for Isabel; now the same haunting sense of old acquaintance returned to him, and held him in a firm and inexorable grip. As soon as the women had all left the room, he carried round his glass, and settled himself decisively at Ivor Restormel’s side, thereby upsetting all the post-prandial arrangements, which had been meant to make him the prey of more interesting and conspicuous men among the guests. ‘We met on the road this afternoon, I think,’ said Kingston; ‘or, rather, I passed you. You refused to accept a lift.’ Ivor Restormel smiled back at him. ‘It was awfully good of you,’ he replied. ‘I have never been offered a lift by a motor before. But, you see, I was so close to Restormel, it would hardly have been worth while.’ ‘Are you staying here?’ inquired Kingston, more and more strongly drawn to this new acquaintance. ‘Yes; Jack Hoope-Arkwright is a great friend of mine. We are at Oxford together. And, besides, I belong here in a sort of way. The place used to be my people’s. I am Ivor Restormel.’ The name instantly brought back to Kingston’s mind that deadly accident which had eventually been the secondary cause of Isabel’s death. He shuddered. But the link of recollection thus forged seemed to bind him more closely to young Restormel. The boy had an inexplicably strong fascination. He was pleasant, he was good-looking, he was well built; but there was something else. He was more attractive than all these good qualities could have made him. Kingston took an increasing pleasure in hearing him speak. ‘I remember all about you,’ answered the older man. ‘My wife used to know your mother well. It was my wife you have been sitting next to. Perhaps she told you how she used to know your people.’