When luncheon was served George looked around and asked, 'Kate, where is mother?'
'She is not coming down,' answered Alice, with averted head.
'She is not quite well,' answered Alice softly.
'Then excuse me a few moments. Don't wait for me, Nevill; you sit here and look after them until I come back.'
Alice now looked at him and tried to catch his eye, but before she could succeed he had left the room.
They waited ten minutes. George did not return. At the end of that time Kate suggested they should wait no more. She said, 'You, Marie, must be fainting for something to eat.'
'Come on,' cried Nevill, 'I am literally starving. If you keep me any longer waiting I'll order up my own boots and have a private picnic on the hearth-rug. It is a rule which never should be broken, to fall to when a man says, "Don't wait for me." I remember once during the great Civil War I was stationed with a small body of sappers and miners on the slope of a hill which was crowned by a church. We were within the enemy's lines, and had to lie almost motionless among some thick undergrowth. The enemy had made a barracks of the church, and our object was to blow up the church at midnight when all the men in the church were asleep. We had only one day's rations with us, and we made up our minds not to eat our principal meal until after dusk. I had two bags, with forty pounds of gunpowder in each. All at once someone said "There goes the curfew--" Yes, I will have another small piece, if you please. I wonder what can be keeping George; he is long over his time already. The brown sherry, thank you. I know it isn't right to take brown sherry; it looks childish. But we are all children, except Mistress Alice. She ought to have a little brandy, I think, to stir the sluggish currents of her blood-- Well, all at once the look-out cries, "Light ahead!" "Where away?" I sang out, raising my glass, and sweeping the horizon. I think I told you it was dark?'
'Yes,' said Alice, with a candid smile, 'and blowing hard.'
'It was blowing a whole gale out of the southward and eastward. I have been at sea many a bad night in my life, but never one like that. The waves rolled mountains high and the spray was something awful. You couldn't see the sky for spray, and you couldn't see the sea for clouds. All at once I heard the cry of 'Man overboard!' I wish George would come. He can't have missed his way, Kate, and gone down to the kitchen. I saw your cook to-day as she took in the bread. Wonderfully pretty girl. Just the kind George in his unguarded moments always told me he liked--Mistress Alice, will you be good enough to tell me at what point of the story I left off.'