They came out where the purple plums and golden apricots were beginning to brighten a southern wall, and there, moodily walking by himself, they met Mostyn face to face.

An angry flash and movement interpreted his annoyance, but he immediately recovered himself, and met Ethel and his late political opponent with polite equanimity.

But a decided constraint fell on the happy party, and Ethel was relieved to hear the first tones of the great bell swing out from its lofty tower the call to the dining-room.
As far as Mostyn was concerned, this first malapropos meeting indicated the whole evening.

His heart was beating quickly to some sense of defeat which he did not take the trouble to analyze.

He only saw the man who had shattered his political hopes and wasted his money in possession also of what he thought he might rightly consider his place at Ethel's side.