passed in the silver light of the long northern day, that threw
strange blue reflections, softer than sapphire, on the ancient plate--the
ambassadorial plate of a Jacobean ancestor.

'It should all have gone to the melting-pot for King Charles's service,'
said the Earl, with a sigh, 'but my ancestor of that day stood for the
Parliament.'

Logan's position at dinner was better for observation than for
entertainment. He sat on the right hand of Lady Mary, where the Prince
ought to have been seated, but Lady Alice sat on her father's left, and
next her, of course, the Prince. 'Love rules the camp, the court, the
grove,' and Love deranged the accustomed order, for the Prince sat
between Lady Alice and Logan. Opposite Logan, and at Lady Mary's left,
was the Jesuit, and next him, Scremerston, beside whom was Miss
Willoughby, on the Earl's right. Inevitably the conversation of the
Prince and Lady Alice was mainly directed to each other--so much so that
Logan did not once perceive the princely eyes attracted to Miss
Willoughby opposite to him, though it was not easy for another to look at
anyone else. Logan, in the pauses of his rather conventional
entertainment by Lady Mary, _did_ look, and he was amazed no less by the
beauty than by the spirits and gaiety of the young lady so recently left
forlorn by the recreant Jephson. This flower of the Record Office and of
the British Museum was obviously not destined to blush unseen any longer.
She manifestly dazzled Scremerston, who seemed to remember Miss Bangs,
her charms, and her dollars no more than Miss Willoughby appeared to
remember the treacherous Don.

Scremerston was very unlike his father: he was a small, rather fair man,
with a slight moustache, a close-clipped beard, and little grey eyes with
pink lids. His health was not good: he had been invalided home from the
Imperial Yeomanry, after a slight wound and a dangerous attack of enteric
fever, and he had secured a pair for the rest of the Session. He was not
very clever, but he certainly laughed sufficiently at what Miss
Willoughby said, who also managed to entertain the Earl with great
dexterity and _aplomb_. Meanwhile Logan and the Jesuit amused the
excellent Lady Mary as best they might, which was not saying much. Lady
Mary, though extremely amiable, was far from brilliant, and never having
met a Jesuit before, she regarded Father Riccoboni with a certain
hereditary horror, as an animal of a rare species, and