But Sir David Blythewood was risen to his feet, and faced his Bohemian friend with a wrathful face.
“The times excuse some jesting,” he began.
“I am in dead earnest, Blythewood.”
“Then, so am I, sir; and I’ll beg the favour of a word with you by and by.”
“At your pleasure. And now, having called the grace, we’ll drink the soup.”
At all this Luvaine looked plentifully surprised. He stared from one to the other of the company with his melancholy frown; and of a sudden he was on his feet.
“Since none will congratulate you, sir,” he said, “I will venture the statement that I never read man’s happiness in a purer face. I know nothing but this; and I drink the lady’s fair health with all my heart.”
Here in truth was an unexpected champion. With a radiant smile Tuke turned to one of the gaping servants.
“Fill your future mistress’s glass,” he said; “and kiss the rim, Betty, to your good friend.”
The poor girl shot a timid, grateful glance across the table. Her eyes swam with tears. For her, indeed, the ordeal was the severest. Gifted with a natural grace of refinement, she yet would hardly venture to eat or drink, lest she should offend by some little solecism against taste. She would not question her lord’s insistence that she should come and sit at his table and take her right rank that was to be the mistress of it; but, oh! how she had longed to be spared the trial until he had loved her and coaxed her and disciplined her into a grave knowledge of the proprieties.