Thus encouraged, they began.
Canon Morchard, Lucilla, and Owen Quentillian outmatched the rest of the players with ease. Each seemed to think with promptitude of great men whose names started with A, battles that began with M, or quotations—English—of which the initial letter was W.
They challenged one another’s references, and verified one another’s dates. They capped quotations, and they provided original bouts rimés.
The entertainment gradually resolved itself into one animated trio, with a faithful but halting chorus, in the persons of Mr. Clover and Flora, and a rapid and low-toned aside between Adrian and Miss Duffle.
Captain Cuscaden played a listless game of noughts and crosses with Miss Admaston, and Valeria leant back in her chair and ceased to pretend that she was occupied.
She looked at the sapphire and diamond ring on her finger, and thought about Owen’s cleverness. She remembered that Lucilla had said he would be a difficult person to live with. She remembered her own secret desires for a life of work, and her assurance to herself that such ambitions were out of place. She reminded herself that her father had been, in his own parlance, glad beyond words to welcome Owen Quentillian as a son. And she looked at Owen himself, and saw him intent, over his little slips of paper, and a sudden rush of tenderness came over her. His absorption in the game seemed to make him younger, and in more need of her. She could remember Owen as a flaxen-haired, solemn, rather priggish little boy, and she suddenly felt that perhaps he had not changed a very great deal since those days, after all.
Val felt happier, in a subdued and wistful way. She woke to the realization that the games were ended.
The Canon had arisen.
“Look up that derivation, Clover, dear man, and let me have it. I shall be curious.... Fare ye well, young people, I recommend Lucilla here as a veritable dictionary of dates, if you wish to continue your amusement.”
Nothing could have been more evident, the moment the Canon had left the room, than that no one wished to pursue amusement on the lines indicated.