It was doubtful, however, that
she knew him in advance to be the Peter Davenant who nine years earlier
had had the presumption to fall in love with her; it was still more
doubtful, after she had actually shaken hands with him and called him by
name, whether she paid him the tribute of any kind of recollection. The
fact that she had seated him at her right, in the place that would
naturally be accorded to Rodney Temple, the scholarly director of the
Department of Ceramics in the Harvard Gallery of Fine Arts, made it look
as if she considered Davenant a total stranger. In the few
conventionally gracious words she addressed to him, her manner was that
of the hostess who receives a good many people in the course of a year
toward the chance guest she had never seen before and expects never to
see again.
"Twice round the world since you were last in Boston? How interesting!"
Then, as if she had said enough for courtesy, she continued across the
lights and flowers to Mrs. Fane: "Drusilla, did you know Colonel Ashley
had declined that post at Gibraltar? I'm so glad. I should hate the
Gib."
"The Gib wouldn't hate you," Mrs. Fane assured her. "You'd have a
heavenly time there.
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