'What shall I drink?' asked Dolly.
'Shall we drink a toast to fortune?' said George, leaning forward.
'I shall drink to the new President of the College of Boggleywollah,' says John Morgan, heartily.
Dolly raised her eyes shyly as she put her lips to the enormous tankard and sipped a health.
As for Raban, he did not drink the toast, although he must have guessed something of what had happened. He never spoke to Dolly, though he duly attended to her wants, and handed bread, and salt, and silver flagons, and fruit, and gold spoons: still he never spoke. She was conscious that he was watching her. In some strange way the dislike and mistrust he felt for Henley seemed reflected upon poor Dorothea again. Why had she been flirting and talking to that man? She, of all women, Robert Henley, of all men, thought Raban, as he handed her a pear. Mrs. Palmer looked at Dorothea more than once during dinner. The girl had two burning cheeks; she did not eat; she scarcely answered the young don when she was spoken to by him; but once Henley leant forward and said something, then she looked up quickly. Stoicism is after all but a relic of barbarous times, and may be greatly over-rated.
Dolly had not yet grown so used to her thick-coming experience that she could always look cold when she was moved, dull when she was troubled, indifferent when her whole heart was in a moment's decision. Later it all came easier to her, as it does to most of us. As the ladies left the dining-room Henley got up to let them out, and made a little sign to Dolly to wait behind. Being in a yielding mood, she lingered a minute in the ante-room, looking for her cloak, and allowed the others to pass on. Henley had closed the door behind him and come out, and seemed to be searching too. It was very dark in the ante-room, of which the twilight windows were small and screened by green plants. While her aunt was being draped in bournouses by Rhoda, and Mrs. Morgan's broad back was turned upon them, Dorothea waited for an instant, and said, 'What is it, Robert?' looking up with her doubtful, yet kindly glance.
'Dear Dorothea, I wanted to make sure it was all true,' said Robert, with one of the few touches of romance which he had experienced in all his well-considered existence. 'I began to think it was a dream, and I thought I should like to ask you.'
'Whether it is all a dream?' said Dolly, almost sadly. 'It is not I who can answer that question; but you see,' she added, smiling, 'that I have begun to do as you tell me. They will think I am lost.' And she sprang away, with a little wave of the hand.