While Lady Lydiard had been speaking, his vivacity had subsided little by little, and had left him looking so serious and so old that his most intimate friend would hardly have known him again.

Roused by the sudden question that had been put to him, he seemed to be casting about in his mind in search of the first excuse for his silence that might turn up.
"I was wondering," he began, "why I miss something when I look round this beautiful room; something familiar, you know, that I fully expected to find here." "Tommie ?" suggested Lady Lydiard, still watching her nephew as maliciously as ever.
"That's it!" cried Felix, seizing his excuse, and rallying his spirits.
"Why don't I hear Tommie snarling behind me; why don't I feel Tommie's teeth in my trousers ?" The smile vanished from Lady Lydiard's face; the tone taken by her nephew in speaking of her dog was disrespectful in the extreme.
She showed him plainly that she disapproved of it.

Felix went on, nevertheless, impenetrable to reproof of the silent sort.

"Dear little Tommie! So delightfully fat; and such an infernal temper! I don't know whether I hate him or love him.

Where is he ?" "Ill in bed," answered her ladyship, with a gravity which startled even Felix himself.