There had been nothing like it since the memorable day when Nina came back from India under the protection of her cousin, the viscount, and every one had a different version of everything.
He was very pale, a slender, brown-eyed youth with his underlip twitching nervously. To all appearances he was quite scared. Still, he certainly was really there.
Naturally there was a flutter—a perfectly visible flutter—for had it not been repeatedly and authoritatively stated that this love-wreck would never be repaired and float in his own especial "swim" again?
Grenfell and the icy coast of Labrador perhaps, or a government berth in Manchuria—but never home society again. Never, never!
And now he was here. His aunt, Lady Bellingdown, hurried forward, her hands extended.
"My dear Caryll! So glad to see you again. You know every one here, I'm sure. We're all so glad to see you. So glad, you know."
He bent and kissed her hand very prettily. Then he bravely cast his big, dark eyes over the rest of the group, taking them all in, individually as well as collectively.
He knew them, every one. Yes, they were all kinsfolk or friends, whose wedding presents he had returned a month before.
It was a trying pair of seconds, through which the duke's seed-cake cheeped like a canary.
"Did you come straight from town?" Waltheof asked in a carefully careless tone. Then he remembered. Very stupid of him; but now too late to mend.