Buntingford would have thought it strange that they should do so, and never for one moment assumed it.
After its languid morning, Beechmark revived with the afternoon.

Its young men guests, whom the Dansworth rioters would probably have classed as parasites and idlers battening on the toil of the people, had in fact earned their holiday by a good many months of hard work, whether in the winding up of the war, or the re-starting of suspended businesses, or the renewed activities of the bar; and they were taking it whole-heartedly.
Golf, tennis, swimming, and sleep had filled the day, and it was a crowd in high spirits that gathered round Mrs.Friend for tea on the lawn, somewhere about five o'clock.

Lucy, who had reached that stage of fatigue the night before when--like Peter Dale, only for different reasons--her bed became her worst enemy, had scarcely slept a wink, but was nevertheless presiding gaily over the tea-table.

She looked particularly small and slight in a little dress of thin grey stuff that Helena had coaxed her to wear in lieu of her perennial black, but there was that expression in her pretty eyes as of a lifted burden, and a new friendship with life, which persons in Philip Buntingford's neighbourhood, when they belonged to the race of the meek and gentle, were apt to put on.

Peter Dale hung about her, distributing tea and cake, and obedient to all her wishes.