Evelyn suddenly felt as if she were being borne forward, but at that moment her father entered.

“Father, Sir Owen was famishing when he arrived.  He wanted to go to the inn and eat a chop, but I persuaded him to stop and have some beefsteak pudding.”

“I am so glad ... you’ve arrived just in time, Sir Owen.  The concert is to-night.”

“He came straight through without stopping; he has not been home.  So, father, you will never be able to say again that your concerts are not appreciated.”

“Well, I don’t think that you will be disappointed, Sir Owen.  This is one of the most interesting programmes we have had.  You remember Ferrabosco’s pavane which you liked so much—­”

Margaret announced the arrival of Sir Owen’s valet, and while Mr. Innes begged of Sir Owen not to put himself to the trouble of dressing, Owen wondered at his own folly in yielding to a sudden caprice to see the girl.  However, he did not regret; she was a prettier girl than he had thought, and her welcome was the pleasantest thing that had happened to him for many a day.

“My poor valet, I am afraid, is quite hors de combat.  He was dreadfully ill while we were beating up against that gale, and the long train journey has about finished him.  At Victoria he looked more dead than alive.”

Evelyn went out to see this pale victim of sea sickness and expedition.  She offered him dinner and then tea, but he said he had had all he could eat at the refreshment bars, and struggled upstairs with the portmanteau of his too exigent master.

A few of her guests had already arrived, and Evelyn was talking to Father Railston when Sir Owen came into the room.

“I shall not want you again to-night,” he said, turning towards the door to speak to his valet.  “Don’t sit up for me, and don’t call me to-morrow before ten.”

She had not yet had time to speak to Owen of a dream which she had dreamed a few nights before, and in which she was much interested.  She had seen him borne on the top of a huge wave, clinging to a piece of wreckage, alone in the solitary circle of the sea.  But Owen, when he came downstairs dressed for the concert, looked no longer like a seafarer.  He wore an embroidered waistcoat, his necktie was tied in a butterfly bow, and the three pearl studs, which she remembered, fastened the perfectly-fitting shirt.  She was a little disappointed, and thought that she liked him better in the rough grey suit, with his hair tossed, just come out of his travelling cap.  Now it was brushed about his ears, and it glistened as if from some application of brilliantine or other toilet essence.  Now he was more prosaic, but he had been extraordinarily romantic when he ran in to see her, his grey travelling cap just snatched from his head.  It was then she should have told him her dream.  All this was a very faint impression, half humorous, half regretful, it passed, almost without