ter, Mr Gallup; will you take her in to dinner?"

And once more he was well in the middle of his dream, for he found
himself in the corridor he knew, side by side with Mary, part of a
procession moving towards the dining-room.

Her hand was on his arm, but the exquisite moment was a little marred
by the discovery that she was quite an inch taller than he.

Eloquent had been to a good many public dinners; he had even dined with
certain Cabinet Ministers, but always when there were only men. He had
never yet dined with people of the Ffolliots' class in this intimate,
friendly way, and he found everything a little different from what he
expected. He had read very little fiction, and such mental pictures as
he had evolved were drawn from his inner consciousness. As always, he
wondered how they contrived to be so gay, to talk such nonsense, and to
laugh at it. Seated between Mary and witty Mrs Ward, whose husband was
one of his ardent supporters in the county, he did his best to join in
the general conversation, but he found it hard. Miss Bax, whose
premonition regarding her fate was justified, seemed to have overcome
her objection to cadets. She and Grantly were just opposite to him,
and he noticed with regret that Grantly was drinking champagne. It
would have been better, Eloquent thought, if the boy had abstained
altogether after his experience at the election. Mary, too, drank
champagne, but Eloquent condoned this weakness in her case, she drank
so little. Everyone drank champagne except Sir George, who preferred
whisky, and Eloquent himself, who drank Apollinaris.

"Do you suffer from rheumatism?" Mary asked innocently. "Do you think
it would hurt you once in a way?"

"I am not in the least rheumatic," Eloquent protested, "but I have
never tasted anything intoxicating."

"Then you don't know whether you'd like it or not. Why not try some
and see?" Mary suggested hospitably.

Eloquent shook his head. "Better not," he said, "you don't know what
effect it might have on me."

He ate whatever was put before him, wholly unaware of its nature, and
in spite of Mary's efforts to keep the conversational ball rolling
gaily, he was very silent.

The dream had got him again, for he knew this room with the dark oak
panelling and great old portraits of departed Ffolliots, some of them
with eyes that followed you. He knew the room, but as he knew it, the
long narrow table, like the table in a refectory, was bare