Over the luncheon to which Tancred was presently summoned a foreboding hovered, ambient in the air. Mrs. Lyeth was not present, confined by a headache, Liance explained, to her room. The girl herself preserved her every-day attitude, and Tancred did his best to engage her in speech; but she did not second his endeavors. When he addressed her she answered, if at all, with her eyes, and in them she put something that resembled a monition. Save for the reference to her future step-mother, she broke bread in silence. As for the general, Cruikshank would have taken him to his heart; he was both jocose and irritable; he feigned a glutton interest in his plate; he loaded the soft Malay tongue with curious oaths, which he exploded at the servant; he alternately praised and reviled the food, and from beneath his bushy eyebrows he glanced in the kindliest fashion now at his daughter and now at his guest. And so well did he succeed in heightening the enervation of the latter that it was not until the acrid caramels were passed that Tancred even pretended to eat. Then, remembering that it was Liance that made them, he ventured to compliment the girl, and, as she answered nothing, acknowledging the tribute only by an inclination of the head, he saw in the expression of her face that she was even more emotionalized than he. Presently a burning coal and some cigars were brought. Liance rose from the table, and Tancred, rising too, accompanied her to the door. There, it may be, she had some message to impart; her lips moved, yet before Tancred could grasp its import the general called him, and he was obliged to turn. The girl wandered out on the veranda, and Tancred resumed his seat.
"Will you smoke?" the general asked. His tone was so friendly that Tancred felt more miserable than before. "Take one," he continued. "Sumatran tobacco ranks nearly with the Havanese."
For a fraction of time which seemed immeasurable the two men smoked in silence. But in a moment the general gave a poke at the coal, and looked up at his guest.
"Mrs. Lyeth tells me that you have done us the honor to ask for my daughter's hand."
Tancred glanced at the point of his cigar, and discovered that it was out.
"May I trouble you?" he murmured.
The general shoved the brasier toward him, and watched the relighting with evident solicitude.
"It's the dampness," he announced. "H'm. Am I correctly informed?"
Tancred gave a puff or two, and then, withdrawing the weed, he held it contemplatively between forefinger and thumb; but he answered not a word.
The general knocked the ashes from his own cigar and eyed the burning coal.