Ostermore, despite the havoc suffered by his fortunes, kept an excellent table and a clever cook, and Mr.Caryll was glad to discover in his sire this one commendable trait.
The conversation was desultory throughout the repast; but when the cloth was raised and the table cleared of all but the dishes of fruit and the decanters of Oporto, Canary and Madeira, there came a moment of expansion.
Mr.Caryll was leaning back in his chair, fingering the stem of his wine-glass, watching the play of sunlight through the ruddy amber of the wine, and considering the extraordinarily odd position of a man sitting at table, by the merest chance, almost, with a father who was not aware that he had begotten him.

A question from his lordship came to stir him partially from the reverie into which he was beginning to lapse.
"Do you look to make a long sojourn in England, Mr.Caryll ?" "It will depend," was the vague and half-unconscious answer, "upon the success of the matter I am come to transact." There ensued a brief pause, during which Mr.Caryll fell again into his abstraction.
"Where do you dwell when in France, sir ?" inquired my lord, as if to make polite conversation.
Mr.Caryll lulled by his musings into carelessness, answered truthfully, "At Maligny, in Normandy." The next moment there was a tinkle of breaking glass, and Mr.Caryll realized his indiscretion and turned cold.
Lord Ostermore, who had been in the act of raising his glass, fetched it down again so suddenly that the stem broke in his fingers, and the mahogany was flooded with the liquor.

A servant hastened forward, and set a fresh glass for his lordship.

That done, Ostermore signed to the man to withdraw.

The fellow went, closing the door, and leaving those two alone.
The pause had been sufficient to enable Mr.Caryll to recover, and for all that his pulses throbbed more quickly than their habit, outwardly he maintained his lazily indifferent pose, as if entirely unconscious that what he had said had occasioned his father the least disturbance.
"You--you dwelt at Maligny ?" said his lordship, the usual high color all vanished from his face.