In spite of the fact that Fitz and his wife remained silent and preoccupied, the progress of the feast was marked by a temperate gaiety. The hostess was on the crest of the wave. She made no attempt to veil an almost indecent sense of triumph. Precisely why she should have harboured it I cannot say, but she betrayed all the outward and visible signs of that emotion. There was a light in her eye, there was a piquancy about her discourse, there was a deferential archness in her attitude towards the high personages by whom she was surrounded, which communicated themselves to the whole table. In response to her sallies the reverberations of the royal laughter were loud and long.
"Toppin' good sort, ain't he?" said my relation by marriage in a moment of expansion to Miss Laura Glendinning.
"Who is a toppin' good sort?" said that literal Diana.
"Why, the King, of course."
"I have never met him," said Diana.
"Where, pray, did you meet him, Joseph?" was the severe inquiry of the Great Lady over the brim of her madeira.
"In the paddock at Newmarket," said the young fellow, making a brilliant recovery.
"Fathead!" said the noble Master in a whisper of indulgent languor. "You nearly blewed it then."
The royal laughter continued to reverberate.
"I suppose he began life as a clown?" said the Great Lady.