"Where's Elaine?"
John explained that he had left Elaine upstairs a few moments ago, and presently Elaine, a little pale, came into the drawing-room. No glance passed between her and John. With a courtly air, Colonel Treves advanced towards her and crooked his elbow.
"May I have the honour?" he said.
Elaine slipped her arm into his. In her pale primrose dress, with her well-coiffeured dark hair emphasising the whiteness of her neck, she looked scarcely more than a child. John noticed with admiration that her head was held erect. She smiled and talked graciously to the Colonel as he led her into the dining-room and placed her upon his right hand. For John there was no smile.
Just as the south room and the drawing-room were strange to John, so also was the dining-room. He seated himself opposite Elaine at the head of a long gleaming white table. Gates moved from place to place softly and noiselessly. Colonel Treves, who was happier than he had been for years, made a perfect host. His happiness intensified John's own loneliness. A sensation of being a pariah came upon him; he felt that he would have given ten years of his life to be actually sitting there in the flesh as the real son of the fine old man who headed the table.
As to Elaine, and his relations with Elaine, he dared not let his mind dwell upon that subject. He was attempting to indicate by his attitude his complete contrition for what had occurred. He tried to catch Elaine's eye. She looked at him, but there was something enigmatical in her expression that he was unable to understand. Her good breeding was such that to the outward eye—to the Colonel's eye, in fact—their relationship was exactly as it had been before, and yet John knew that a barrier had risen between them.
Elaine maintained her air of stately reserve during the rest of the evening, and at ten o'clock, when she rose to go to her room, the Colonel politely conducted her to the door. As he closed it upon her he turned and looked towards John.
"You are a lucky man, Bernard!" he exclaimed.
He came slowly across the room, using his stick, as was his general habit.
"I hope some day, my boy," he said, "when this place is yours, Elaine will reign here as graciously and be as well beloved as your dear mother was."