For just think of a man like Harry caught thus in a perfect trap of
converging looks.

As if from a sudden feeling of hostile presence, he glanced round--and
stood erect. The poor fellow's face at once flushed as red as shame could
make it, but he neither lost his self-possession, nor sought to escape
under cover of a useless pretence. He turned to the colonel.

"Colonel Cathcart," he said, "I will choose a more suitable time to make
my apology. I wish you good night."

He bowed to us all, not choosing to risk a refusal of his hand by the
colonel, and went quickly out of the house.

The colonel stood for some moments, which felt to me like minutes, as if
he had just mounted guard at the drawing-room door. His face was perfectly
expressionless. We men felt very much like stale oysters, and would rather
have skipped that same portion of our inevitable existence. What the
ladies felt, I do not pretend, being an old bachelor, to divine.

Adela, pale as death, fled up the stair. The only thing left for the rest
of us was, to act as much as possible as if nothing were the matter, and
get out of the way before the poor girl came down again. As soon as I got
home, I went to my own room, and thus avoided the _tete-a-tete_ with my
host which generally closed our evenings.

The colonel went up to his daughter's room, and remained there for nearly
an hour. Adela was not at the breakfast-table the next morning. Her father
looked very gloomy, and Mrs. Cathcart grimly satisfied, with _I told you