When they got back to Carbies, after having satisfied herself that her guest had recovered and would join them at dinner, she astonished her maid by demanding an evening toilette. She wore a gown of grey and silver brocade, very stiff and Elizabethan, a chain of uncut cabochon emeralds hung round her neck, and a stomacher of the same decorated her corsage. The mauve osprey upstanding in her hair was clasped by a similar encrusted jewel. She carried herself regally. Had she not come into her woman’s Kingdom? Tonight she meant that he should see what he had won. It was a strange evening, nevertheless, and they were a strangely assorted quartette. There was a little glow of colour in Margaret’s cheeks, such as Peter Kennedy had never seen there before, her eyes shone like stars, and she wore this regal toilette. Peter was introduced to Anne. Anne, yellowish and subdued after the migraine, dressed in brown taffeta, opening at the wizened throat to display a locket of seed pearls on a gold chain; her brown toupée had slipped a little and discovered a few grey hairs, her hands, covered with inexpensive rings, showed clawlike and tremulous. Margaret’s unringed hands, so pale and small, were like Japanese flowers. Peter had to take in Anne. Gabriel gave his arm to Margaret. The poverty of the dining-room furniture was out of the circle of the white spread table, where the suspended lamp shone on fine silver and glass. Flowers came constantly to Carbies from London. Tonight red roses scented the room; hothouse roses, blooming before their time, on long thornless stems. Margaret drew a vase toward her, exclaimed at the wealth of perfume. “I only hope they won’t make your headache worse.” Anne tried to insist she had no headache. Peter advised a glass of champagne. She began to tell him something of her new-found panacea for all ills, but ceased upon finding he was what she called a “medical man,” one of the enemies of their creed. Before the dinner had passed the soup stage he hardly made a pretence of listening to her. Both men were absorbed in this regal Margaret. All her graciousness was for Gabriel, but she found occasion now and again for a smile and a word for Peter. Poor Peter! guest at this high feast where there was no food for him. But he made the most of the material provender, and proved fortunately to be an excellent trencherman. Otherwise Margaret’s good cook had exerted herself in vain. For none of them had appetite but Peter; Margaret because she talked too much, and Gabriel because he could do nothing but listen; Anne because she was feeling the after-effects, and regretting she had yielded to the temptation of the aspirin.