Sir Piers Harding was the last to arrive. He was a thick-set, livid man with an unyielding smile and the yellow eyes of one whom rich diet rather than an angry god had rendered melancholy. "You haven't changed in the least," he said, considering Lord Garrow with some resentment. "Ah, well!" replied his lordship, "eleven years do not make much difference at my time of life. You, however, are decidedly greyer. Where have you been hiding yourself? I think you were foolish to leave England. Gladstone was remarking but the other day, 'Harding was always so cocksure.' 'And wasn't he right?' said I. 'Of course,' said he; 'and that was the worst of him. He _was_ right. Who could stand it?' That's the world. It's devilish unappreciative of the truth." Reckage, much bored by the old men, stood by Pensée's chair, where he could watch Sara and angle for her glance. When it happened that she smiled at him a little--either in mere friendship or mockery--he felt a kind of fire steal through his veins, and he told himself that she was a dangerous woman--a woman who could get her own way in the long run. That she was a girl--and, with all her shortcomings, a very innocent one--made her odd powers of fascination but the more insidious. She wore a dress of wine-coloured silk which fitted plainly over her breast and shoulders and fell in graceful flounces from the waist. The warm, olive lines of her cheek and throat appeared the darker in contrast with a twist of white lace which she wore round her neck; and her black hair, dressed higher than usual, was held in place by a large ruby comb which caught the fire-light as she moved. Reckage was conscious, for the first time in his life, of a real embarrassment. He could not talk to her; he felt tongue-tied when she addressed him. Ill at ease, yet not unhappy, he struggled to maintain some coherence in his conversation; but, at each moment, his own ideas grew less certain and Sara's voice more enchanting. It seemed to convey the lulling powers of an anodyne. When he tried to rouse himself, the effort was as painful as the attempt to wake from a dream within a dream. "You were at the wedding this morning?" she asked lightly. "No.... What a fool I am! Yes, of course. You mean Robert's wedding?" She gave a little smile, and murmured, dropping her voice, "I meant Robert's wedding." Luncheon was then announced: the sliding doors which separated the dining-room from Lord Garrow's library were rolled back. They all walked in--Pensée and Sara leading the way.