He found the party pretty nearly assembled, and the usual buzz and animation prevailing, and he smiled and swayed from group to group, and from one chair to another.
Doocey was glad, monstrous glad to see him.
"I had no idea how hard it was to find a good player, until you left us—our whist has been totally ruined. The first night we tried Linnett; he thinks he plays, you know; well, I do assure you, you never witnessed such a thing—such a caricature, by Jupiter—forgetting your lead—revoking—everything, by Jove. You may guess what a chance we had—my partner, I give you my honour, against old Sir Paul Blunket, as dogged a player as there is in England, egad, and Sir Jekyl there. We tried Drayton next night—the most conceited fellow on earth, and no head—Sir Paul had him. I never saw an old fellow so savage. Egad, they were calling one another names across the table—you'd have died laughing; but we'll have some play now you've come back, and I'm very glad of it."
Varbarriere, while he listened to all this, smiling his fat dark smile, and shrugging and bowing slightly as the tale required these evidences, was quietly making his observations on two or three of the persons who most interested him. Beatrix, he thought, was looking ill—certainly much paler, and though very pretty, rather sad—that is, she was ever and anon falling into little abstractions, and when spoken to, waking up with a sudden little smile.
Lady Jane Lennox—she did not seem to observe him—was seated like a sultana on a low cushioned seat, with her rich silks circling grandly round her. He looked at her a little stealthily and curiously, as men eye a prisoner who is about to suffer execution. His countenance during that brief glance was unobserved, but you might have read there something sinister and cruel.
"I forget—had the Bishop come when you left us?" said Sir Jekyl, laying his hand lightly from behind on the arm of Varbarriere. The dark-featured man winced—Sir Jekyl's voice sounded unpleasantly in his reverie.
"Ah! Oh! The Bishop? Yes—the Bishop was here when I left; he had been here a day or two," answered Varbarriere, with a kind of effort.
"Then I need not introduce you—you're friends already," said Sir Jekyl.
At which moment the assembled party learned that dinner awaited them, and the murmured arrangements for the procession commenced, and the drawing-room was left to the click of the Louis Quatorze clock and the sadness of solitude.
"We had such a dispute, Monsieur Varbarriere, while you were away," said Miss Blunket.