Lord Rohallion bowed, and shook the hand of Quentin cordially, but did not remark his features particularly, till the expression of astonishment and joy, half mingled by doubt and fear, which he saw, while surveying alternately the faces of Flora and Lady Winifred, attracted all his attention.
"Quentin—Quentin Kennedy!" they exclaimed together. Flora seemed tottering and deadly pale; but Lady Rohallion threw herself into his arms, and sobbed hysterically.
Conyers played with the tassels of his sash, and thought himself decidedly in the way....
Brief and rapid were the questions asked, and explanations given now; other guests came crowding in till the dinner-party was complete, and Jack Andrews made the gong send its thunder from the vestibule: thus they were compelled to compose themselves, nor indulge in that which well-bred English society so eminently abhors—a scene.
"I was thought too old to command a brigade in the field, Quentin," said Lord Rohallion, shaking the hand of his young friend, at least for the sixth time; "so the Duke of York kindly sent me to this quiet place. If the flat-bottomed boats ever leave Boulogne, they will find me, however, at my post; and, egad! I hope to show them there is life in the old dog yet!"
Conyers, the aide, who no doubt usually acted as esquire to la belle Flora, was considerably put out—disgusted, in fact—when he found her completely appropriated by another; while he was compelled to offer his arm to the buxom wife of an adjutant of a Veteran battalion.
"Flora!"
"Quentin!"
They had no other words for each other, even in whispers, as they went mechanically to the dining-room, where all the cold formality of a grand state dinner was to be enacted and endured.
A strange throbbing thrill ran through Quentin's heart, as memory went back to that last meeting in the sycamore avenue, and the last kiss given there, as he seemed with the touch of her hand to take up the long-dropped link of a life that had passed away—his boyish life of joy and love at Rohallion—long dropped, but never forgotten!