"After so much good feeling I could not think of our shutting ourselves up away from them in our own dining-room." "Certainly not--certainly not," said Fitzpiers; and he entered the room with the heroic smile of a martyr.
As soon as they sat down to table Melbury came in, and seemed to see at once that Fitzpiers would much rather have received no such demonstrative reception.

He thereupon privately chid his wife for her forwardness in the matter.

Mrs.Melbury declared that it was as much Grace's doing as hers, after which there was no more to be said by that young woman's tender father.

By this time Fitzpiers was making the best of his position among the wide-elbowed and genial company who sat eating and drinking and laughing and joking around him; and getting warmed himself by the good cheer, was obliged to admit that, after all, the supper was not the least enjoyable he had ever known.
At times, however, the words about his having spoiled his opportunities, repeated to him as those of Mrs.Charmond, haunted him like a handwriting on the wall.

Then his manner would become suddenly abstracted.