Psyche revelled in a sight of sleek coats and gentle snuggling heads, of soft muzzles nibbling at her hands. Legs Miss Delorme looked upon as merely things which were necessary to a horse to travel on; but heads and necks were to pet.
She tore herself away to eat mutton chops and cold pheasant off a little table drawn close to the fire in the big dining-room, after which she showed a distinct desire to return to the kennels and learn more about hounds.
Instead she was driven home, leaving Darby alone on his steps, his eyes wistful as the pony galloped off.
The silence of the big house seemed to sob to him as he went in to the fire, his dogs at his heels, the loneliness to become something tangible and almost evil and alive, until he got out the car and followed the two girls to Castle Freyne.
Castle Freyne was occupied by the committee of the concert, headed by Miss O'Toole, with Lancelot drooping sulkily alone in the library, his foot full of twinges.
He was only a poor wounded creature, and, of course, they were right to leave him alone and not bother about him, and he was going home next day, he said.
Gheena's easily-pricked conscience felt the pangs of remorse; she fetched Lancelot his tea herself, ministering to his growing weight with honey sandwiches and heavily-buttered potato scones and chocolate cakes.
"Where he do put it all an' he never to give it a shake down with a minnit's walk even, 'd make ye wondther," Naylour had muttered once audibly in the door.
This was after an invalid's luncheon of beef-tea, a chop, a partridge, and a sponge pudding, had completely disappeared from the tray. Lancelot's foot held twinges which only nourishment could assuage.
When the subject of songs had been fully discussed and a selection, marked by tepid affection and absence of much air, chosen by several singers, the war, of course, swept aside even the discussion of the music which its stern necessity was to evoke.