He held his fork aloft, and looked at her with sudden gravity.
"Eh! Oh, Portmaris. No. No lobster cutlets down there. I rather think they eat the lobsters raw."
"What an outlandish place it must be!" said Lady Eleanor. "I wonder how you could stay there, you and Dolph."
"Oh, anything for a change," he said, carelessly, but with his mind apparently fixed on his plate, at the bottom of which he could see Leslie's face as plainly as if she were standing before him.
The lunch was over at last. It had seemed interminable to Lady Eleanor, and Lady Denby had, with a half-audible murmur of an afternoon drive, taken herself away and left the coast clear.
"You want to smoke?" said Lady Eleanor. "Come into the conservatory. Aunt doesn't mind it there, as it kills the insects."
He lit a cigar, and lounged against the doorway, and she sank into a seat and absently picked the blossoms nearest to her.
"Now is the time," he thought, "to tell her everything," but at the moment he remembered the bracelet which the duke had given him for her, and he put his hand in his pocket and drew it out.
"By the way, Eleanor," he said, carelessly, "you had a birthday the other day."