There were people who ascribed this
attitude to the fact that, being constitutionally "game," she refused to
betray her disappointment. She had been "awfully game," they said, when
poor Gerald Fane, also of the Sussex Rangers, was cut off with enteric
at Peshawur. But the general opinion was to the effect that, not wanting
Rupert Ashley (for some obscure, feminine reason) for herself, she had
magnanimously bestowed him elsewhere. Around tea-tables, and at church
parade, it was said "Americans do that," with some comment on the
methods of the transfer.

On every ground, then, Drusilla was entitled to this first look at the
presents, some of which had come from Ashley's brother officers, who
were consequently brother officers of the late Captain Fane; so that
when she telephoned saying she was afraid that they, her parents and
herself, couldn't come to dinner that evening, because a former ward of
her father's--Olivia must remember Peter Davenant!--was arriving to stay
with them for a week or two, Miss Guion had answered, "Oh, bother! bring
him along," and the matter was arranged. It was doubtful, however, that
she knew him in advance to be the Peter Davenant who nine years earlier
had had the presumption to fall in love with her; it was still more
doubtful, after she had actually shaken hands with him and called him by
name, whether she paid him the tribute of any kind of recollection. The
fact that she had seated him at her right, in the place that would
naturally be accorded to Rodney Temple, the scholarly director of the
Department of Ceramics in the Harvard Gallery of Fine Arts, made it look
as if she considered Davenant a total stranger. In the few
conventionally gracious words she addressed to him, her manner was that
of the hostess who receives a good many people in the course of a year
toward the chance guest she had never seen before and expects never to
see again.

"Twice round the world since you were last in Boston? How interesting!"
Then, as if she had said enough for courtesy, she continued across the
lights and flowers to Mrs. Fane: "Drusilla, did you know Colonel Ashley
had declined that post at Gibraltar? I'm so glad. I should hate the
Gib."

"The Gib wouldn't hate you," Mrs. Fane assured her. "You'd have a
heavenly time there. Rupert Ashley is deep in the graces of old
Bannockburn, who's in command. He's not a bad old sort, old Ban isn't,
though he's a bit of a martinet. Lady Ban is awful--a bounder