Gossip became general. Rochester as usual was full of anecdotes, bits of scandal and gossip, retailed with a free tongue and an inexhaustible fund of somewhat boisterous humour. The soup was beyond reproach and the wine more than drinkable.
"Gad's 'ounds," he cried presently when Blond and his wife had retired, leaving the English company to itself, "this is a feast fit for the gods! Michael Kestyon, our amiable host, I raise my glass to thee! Gentlemen, our host!"
He raised his glass, Stowmaries following suit; but Ayloffe checked them both with a peremptory lifting of his hand.
"Nay, nay!" he said, "my lord Rochester you do forget--and you, too, gentlemen! Fie on you, fie, I say! Not a drop shall pass your lips until you have pledged me as you should. 'Tis I will give you the first toast of the evening. Gentlemen, the bride!"
There was loud clapping of mugs against the table, then lusty shouts of "The bride! the bride!" The three men raised their bumpers and drained them to the last drop, honouring the toast to the full. Sir John looked keenly at Michael, but even his sharp, observant eyes could not detect the slightest change in the calm and serene face. Michael, too, had raised his mug, but Ayloffe noted that he did not touch the wine with his lips.
Shrewd Sir John ever alive to his own interests fell to speculating as to what had gone amiss, and whether any event had been likely to occur which would affect his own prospects in any way. Mistress Peyton's twelve thousand pounds had not yet--remember,--been transferred to Cousin John's pocket, and no one was more profoundly aware of the truth of the old dictum that "there's many a slip--" than was Sir John Ayloffe himself. But there was naught to read on Michael Kestyon's placid face, only the vague suspicion of carefully concealed weariness; and in Ayloffe's practical mind there was something distinctly unnatural in the serene calm of a man who was richer to-day by one hundred and twenty thousand pounds, not even to mention an excessively pretty and well-dowered bride.
Sir John, relying on his own powers of observation, had every intention of probing this matter to the bottom, but in the meanwhile he thought it best not to let the others see, too clearly, what he himself had only vaguely guessed, therefore it was he again who shouted more lustily even than before: