“Leviathan does not look as if he meant to eat you; and even if he did, I don’t believe my courage would run to closing with six-foot-five-and-a-half.”
“Awful, isn’t it?” she said, releasing herself and giving him her hand. “He is like those lanky pieces of corn which are all stalk and no head. Have you seen him before?”
“Once,” offering his hand to Hermon. “Delighted to see you again. I hear you’ve made a hit already. My cousin tells me his friend is charmed with your way of grappling with her case.”
“Did you take her by the shoulders?” asked Hal wickedly, rubbing her own.
“No,” Lord Denton told her. “He was very grave indeed. You must give him his due, Miss Pritchard. You’ve seen him grave yourself, haven’t you now?”
“Yes; and he looked like a boiled owl. On the whole, I prefer him imbecile.”
Alymer turned on her threateningly, but she slipped behind the other two, saying:
“Have you met these also, Lord Denton. Mr. St. Quintin, of Shoreditch, and my cousin, Dick Bruce, poet, novelist, and mother’s help.”
Denton shook hands with them genially, and then Lorraine came back, and they all followed her to the dining-room.
The repast was a very gay one. Every one was in the best of spirits, and, which is more important still, all were in attune, and there was no dissentient note. Hal was perhaps the gayest, and Lord Denton found himself watching her almost if he were seeing her for the first time. She seemed to him to have developed amazingly in the few months since he last met her, but he supposed girls of her age often developed quickly.