He was silent through the first courses, and his wife rallied him on his reserve.
"I was thinking," said he, and he roused himself suddenly. "I was thinking," and then he stopped with a whimsical glance at me. "But perhaps I am forestalled."
Lady Derwentwater clapped her hands and gave a little laugh of delight.
"I know," she said, and turned to me. "My husband is the most inveterate match-maker in the kingdom, Mr. Clavering. He is like any old maid that sits by the window planning matrimony for every couple that passes in the streets. I should like to dress him up in a gown of linsey-woolsey and lappets of bone-lace."
"That's unfair," he returned "For there is this difference between the old maid and me—she is a match-maker by theory, I through experience."
He spoke lightly, as befitted him in the presence of an acquaintance, but his eyes were upon his wife's face, and her eyes met his. She reddened ever so little, and looked at her plate. Then she sent a shyish glance towards me, another to her husband—and all her heart was pulsing in that—and so again to her plate, with a ripple of happy laughter. I seemed to be trespassing upon the intimacy of a couple but half an hour married—and there were children asleep in their cots upstairs. A pang of genuine envy shot through me, the which Lady Derwentwater remarked, though she misunderstood it For—
"James," she said, turning reproachfully to her husband, "there is Mr. Clavering absolutely disconcerted, and no wonder. Darby and Joan may be well enough by themselves, but with a guest they are the most impertinent people in the world."
"True," said he, "and if Mr. Clavering patronises Herbert, he will have enough of Darby and Joan to sicken him for his lifetime, though it is a Darby and Joan in the April rather than the autumn of their years," he added, with a smile.
"Nay," I interrupted, "to tell the truth, I was thinking of the big, empty galleries of Blackladies."
"There!" he exclaimed, triumphantly, "Mr. Clavering justifies my match-making. Out of his own mouth he justifies me. We must marry him. Now, to whom?" and once or twice he patted the table with the flat of his hand in a weighty deliberation.