"So,"—Sir William laid down his knife and fork and fell to seal-rattling under the table—"so you've come now to doubt the power of the British Navy!"
"I've come," said Julian, "to see the danger of not doubting it."
The seals joined the general silence.
"I wonder," Sir William remarked dryly, "what your father would say to your views."
"I could tell you, sir, if it mattered."
"If it mattered! God bless my soul!" Sir William looked at Julian for the first time with cold dislike.
After luncheon the younger members of the party still hung aimlessly about the table in the hall, while Sir William and Lady McIntyre opened the letters brought by the latest post.
Napier tried in vain, by any of the unmarked means, to detach Nan from the others. Finally he said, with less indirectness than he often permitted himself, "I never see you now. Are you still too devoured by the Belgian locusts to have anything left for your older—friends?"
"Locusts! How can you? I am not at all devoured. Or, if I am, it's by something quite different." She said it with her air of new importance.