And, Everard, you have such clever guests, not at all the sort of people my Everard would have had here, and I have been out of the world for so long, that I am afraid I sha'n't be able to talk to them.
Nurse Alice is tremendously impressed.

I am sure I should be terrified to sit at the end of the table, and Caroline will hate not being hostess any longer.

Let me come down at tea-time and after dinner, and slip into things gradually.

You can easily say that I am still an invalid, though of course I'm not at all." "You shall do exactly as you choose," he promised, as he took his leave.
So when the shooting party tramped into the hall that afternoon, a little weary, but flushed with exercise and the pleasure of the day's sport, they found, seated in a corner of the room, behind the great round table upon which tea was set out, a rather pale but extraordinarily childlike and fascinating woman, with large, sweet eyes which seemed to be begging for their protection and sympathy as she rose hesitatingly to her feet.

Dominey was by her side in a moment, and his first few words of introduction brought every one around her.