Then the two went slowly upstairs to change their dresses.
When they came down again, Mr. Paget, who was to dine with them, was waiting in the drawing-room. There was a suppressed excitement, a suppressed triumph in his eyes, which, however, only made him look more particularly bright and charming.
When Valentine came in in the pure white which gave her such a girlish and even pathetically innocent air, he went up and kissed her almost fiercely. He put his arm round her waist and drew her close to him, and looked into her eyes with a sense of possession which frightened her. For the first time in all her existence she half shrank from the father whom she idolized. She was scarcely conscious of her own shrinking, of the undefinable something which made her set herself free, and stand on the hearthrug by Lilias' side.
"I don't see your husband, my pet," said Mr. Paget. "He ought to have come home long before now, that is, if he means to come with us to-night."
"But he doesn't, father," said Valentine. "That's just the grief. I had a telegram from him, half-an-hour ago; he is unavoidably detained."
Mr. Paget raised his eyebrows.
"Not at the office," he said, in a markedly grave voice, and with another significant raise of his brows. "That I know, for he left before I did. Ah, well, young men will be young men."
Neither Valentine nor Lilias knew why they both flushed up hotly, and left a wider space between them and Valentine's handsome father.
He did not take the least notice of this movement on both their parts, but went on in a very smooth, cheerful voice.
"Perhaps Gerald does not miss as much as he thought," he said. "Since I saw you this morning, Val, our programme has been completely altered. We go to Captain Swift to-morrow night. I went to the office and exchanged the box. To-night we go to the Gaiety. I have been fortunate in securing one of the best boxes in the whole house, and Monte Christo Junior is well worth seeing."