‘You must not call him Raphael any more,’ the girl said demurely. ‘He is to be Ralph now, for all of us, so my uncle says.’
‘Is that so?’ said Lancelot, looking up at the Captain. ‘Well, we must obey orders, and indeed I would rather have Ralph than Raphael. ’Tis less of an outlandish name.’
Then we all laughed, and we all came back into the hall of the inn together.
I watched Lancelot with wonder and with pride. He had grown amazingly in the years since I had seen him, and carried himself like a man. He was handsomer than ever I thought, and liker to our island’s patron saint. As he stripped off his travelling coat and stood up in the neat habit of a well-to-do town gentleman, he looked such a cavalier as no woman but would wish for a lover, no man but desire for a friend.
‘Lads and lass,’ said Captain Amber, ‘it will soon be time to dine. We have waited dinner for this scapegrace’—and he pinched Lancelot’s ear—‘so get the dust of travel off as quickly as may be, and we will sit down with good appetite.’
At these words I made to go away, for I did not dream that I was to be of the party; but the Captain, seeing my action, caught me by the arm.
‘Nay, Ralph,’ he said, ‘you must stay and dine with us. You are one of us now, and Lancelot must not lose you on this first day of fair meeting.’
I was indeed glad to accept, for Lancelot’s sake. But there was another reason in my heart which made me glad also, and that reason was that I should see the girl again who was my Captain’s darling, the sister whom Lancelot had kissed.
So I said that I would come gladly, if so be that I had time to run home and tell my mother, lest she might be keeping dinner for me.
‘That’s right, lad, that’s right. Ever think of the feelings of others.’