"And all the while you were engaged to another man! Good God, what a farce! what a miserable mistake from first to last!" Ruth said nothing.

It was indeed a miserable mistake.
He rose wearily to his feet.
"I was forgetting," he said; "it is time to go home." And they went back together in silence, which was more bearable than speech just then.
The peacocks were still pirouetting and minuetting on the stone balustrade as they came back to the garden.

The gong began to sound as they entered the piazza.
To Ruth it was a dreadful meal.

She tried to listen to Mr.Conway's account of the gray cob, or to the placid conversation of Mr.Alwynn about the beloved manuscripts.

Fortunately the morning papers were full of a recent forgery in America, and a murder in London, which furnished topics when these were exhausted, and Charles used them to the utmost.
At last the carriage came.