The Man in Possession — page 98: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE MAN IN POSSESSION. 93 turned to Sir Wilfred, and did her best to encourage him cohversationally, though she inwardly ac- knowledged it was the hardest task she had ever set herself. : As for Sir Wilfred, the effects of the dinner and the wine gradually restored his courage, and he became quite boisterously brilliant as the meal proceeded, making jokes and laughing at them, and paying Kate such extremely open compliments that she grew quite uncomfortable. At the end of the table, hilarity reigned supreme, for Cornelius O’Brien and Miss Judy Rivers were firing off jokes and repartee with a keen zest and an appreciation of each other’s power of humour that were quite infectious. Kate felt that her surroundings were especially dull and heavy by comparison, and again and again her eyes would wander to a certain fair cropped head which showed itself between a screen of flowers and rose- shaded candles. What a bright, merry laugh he had, and what a pleasant voice! Its tones and phrases occasionally touched her memory with that sense of recognition; that puzzled effort at identification that she had felt on first meeting him. ‘‘If I could put my bailiff into evening dress and set him down here, he would be just another Tom Rivers,” she thought. ‘* The likeness is most extraordinary.” | The dinner went on through its wearisome length of courses. Kate felt bored to death and could scarcely help showing it. She inwardly breathed a hope that Sir Wilfred would not take her in another night. How eagerly she waited for Lady Jocelyn’s signal, which, as it happened, cut short a brilliant COMicloe (Sri C(O)