More than a year had passed when, one February morning, as he left the breakfast table, Endymion handed Dorothea a slip of paper.
"Do you think we can entertain at dinner next Wednesday? If you can manage it, I wish these invitations written out and despatched before noon."
"Next Wednesday?" Dorothea's eyebrows went up. Invitations to dine at
Bayfield had always, as we know, been issued just three weeks ahead.
"If it will not inconvenience you," he answered; and his manner added, as plainly as words, "I beg that you will not press for my reasons." He was booted already for his ride into Axcester.
Dorothea ran her eye down the list: The Vicomte de Tocqueville, General Rochambeau. . . . All the prisoners of distinction were included as well as the chief notables of the neighbourhood, which made it a long one, even without a full balance of ladies.
She went off to her room at once and penned the letters—twenty-five in all.
Naturally, this break in the Bayfield custom set speculation going among the invited; but it is doubtful if Narcissus, any more than Dorothea, knew the reason of it. And on Wednesday, when the guests assembled, the only one who might be suspected of sharing Endymion's secret was (oddly enough) General Rochambeau. The old fellow seemed ten years younger, and wore an air of sportiveness, almost of raillery, as he caught his host's eye. The compliments he paid Lady Bateson across the table were prodigious, and gave that good soul a hazy sensation of being wafted back to the court of Louis XV, and behaving brilliantly under the circumstances.
"Really, my dear Mr. Westcote," she protested at length, being a chartered utterer of indiscretions which (as she delighted to prove) Endymion would not tolerate in others, but took from her and allowed, with a magisterial smile, to pass,—"really, I trust you have not taken off the General's parole, or to-morrow I shall have to lock my gates for fear of a chaise-and-pair."
"Ah, to-morrow!" the General echoed, turning to Endymion, with a twinkle of malice in his eye. "But when Mr. Westcote releases us, it will be en masse; and then, believe me, I shall come with an army, since I underrate neither the strength of the fortress nor the feeling of the country."
"That reminds me," put in a Mr. Saxby, of Yeovil, or near by, "we have heard of no escape or attempts at escape from Axcester this winter. I congratulate you, Westcote—if the General will not think it offensive."