His face grew very dark; then he said—
'We may as well have a truce to this sort of thing. A quarrel between you and me, Dulcie Carlyon, would only do me no harm, but you very much. The grandmater wouldn't keep you in the house an hour.'
'How chivalrous, how gentlemanly, you are!'
'Hush!' said he, with alarm, for at that instant the dinner-bell was clanging, and Finella with others came into the drawing-room, Lady Fettercairn luckily the last, though Shafto had warily withdrawn abruptly from Dulcie's vicinity at the first sound of it. Her first dinner in the stately dining-room of Craigengowan, with its lofty arched recess, where stood the massive sideboard arrayed with ancient plate, its hangings and full-length pictures, was a new experience—a kind of dream to Dulcie. The lively hum of many well-bred voices in easy conversation; the great epergne with its pyramid of fruit, flowers, ferns, and feathery grasses; the servants in livery, who were gliding noiselessly about, and seemed to be perpetually presenting silver dishes at her left elbow; old Mr. Grapeston, the solemn butler, presiding over the entire arrangements—all seemed part of a dream, from which she would waken to find herself in her old room at home, and see the waves rolling round the bleak promontory of Revelstoke Church and in the estuary of the Yealm; and, sooth to say, though used to all this luxury now, and though far from imaginative, Shafto had not been without some fears at first that he too might waken from a dream, to find himself once more perched on a tall stool in Lawyer Carlyon's gloomy office, and hard at work over an ink-spotted desk, the memory of which he loathed with a disgust indescribable.
Seeing that Dulcie looked sad and abstracted, Finella, who kindly offered a seat beside her, said softly and sweetly:
'I hope you won't feel strange among us; but I see you are full of thought. Did you leave many dear friends behind you—at home, I mean?'
'Many; oh yes—all the village, in fact,' said Dulcie, recalling the sad day of her departure; 'but, perhaps, I was selfish enough to regret one most—my pet.'
'What was it?'
'A dear little canary—only a bird.'
'And why didn't you bring it?'