"Well, I'm not now."

It was clear to Davenant by this time that in these words Guion was not
so much making a statement as flinging a challenge. He made that evident
by the way in which he sat upright, squared his shoulders, and rested a
large, white fist clenched upon the table. His eyes, too, shone,
glittered rather, with a light quite other than that which a host
usually turns upon his guests. To Davenant, as to Mrs. Temple, it seemed
as if he had "something on his mind"--something of which he had a
persistent desire to talk covertly, in the way in which an undetected
felon will risk discovery to talk about the crime.

No one else apparently at the table shared this impression. Rodney
Temple, with eyes pensively downcast, toyed with the seeds of a pear,
while Miss Guion and Mrs. Fane began speaking of some other incident of
what to them was above everything else, "the Service." A minute or two
later Olivia rose.

"Come, Cousin Cherry. Come, Drusilla," she said, with her easy,
authoritative manner. Then, apparently with an attempt to make up for
her neglect of Davenant, she said, as she held the door open for the
ladies to pass: "Don't let them keep you here forever. We shall be
terribly dull till you join us."

He was not too dense to comprehend that the words were conventional, as
the smile she flung him was perfunctory. Nevertheless, the little
attention pleased him.