"If I am to have you under my wing as a rule, Miss Lucy, take care that you behave yourself," nodded Lionel.
Lucy laughed, and the dinner proceeded. But there was very probably an undercurrent of consciousness in the heart of both—at any rate, there was in his—that it might have been more expedient, all things considered, that Lucy Tempest's place at dinner had not been fixed by the side of Lionel Verner.
Dinner was half over when Sibylla suddenly laid down her knife and fork, and burst into tears. They looked at her in consternation. Lionel rose.
"That horrid John Massingbird!" escaped her lips. "I always disliked him."
"Goodness!" uttered Jan, "I thought you were taken ill, Sibylla. What's the good of thinking about it?"
"According to you, there's no good in thinking of anything," tartly responded Sibylla. "You told me yesterday not to think about Fred, when I said I wished he had come back instead of John—if one must have come back."
"At any rate, don't think about unpleasant things now," was Jan's answer. "Eat your dinner."