Grace, girl that she was, had quite forgotten her new dignity and
her husband's; she was in the midst of them, blushing, and
receiving their compliments with all the pleasure of old-
comradeship.
Fitzpiers experienced a profound distaste for the situation.
Melbury was nowhere in the room, but Melbury's wife, perceiving
the doctor, came to him. "We thought, Grace and I," she said,
"that as they have called, hearing you were come, we could do no
less than ask them to supper; and then Grace proposed that we
should all sup together, as it is the first night of your return."
By this time Grace had come round to him. "Is it not good of them
to welcome me so warmly?" she exclaimed, with tears of friendship
in her eyes. "After so much good feeling I could not think of our
shutting ourselves up away from them in our own dining-room."
"Certainly not--certainly not," said Fitzpiers; and he entered the
room with the heroic smile of a martyr.
As soon as they sat down to table Melbury came in, and seemed to
see at once that Fitzpiers would much rather have received no such
demonstrative reception.
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