"Good-night. And—mind—that lout gets the two horses back again for my use in the morning. I shall have to make my way to Chelwood as early as may be."
"Aye, aye, zir," assented the woman placidly. It were no use, she thought, to upset the Mounzeer's temper once more by telling him that his guide had decamped. Time enough in the morning, when she would be less busy.
"And my John can see 'im as far as Chelwood," she thought to herself as she finally closed the door on the stranger and made her way slowly down the creaking stairs.
CHAPTER III
THE ASSEMBLY ROOMS
I
The sigh of satisfaction was quite unmistakable.
It could be heard from end to end, from corner to corner of the building. It sounded above the din of the orchestra who had just attacked with vigour the opening bars of a schottische, above the brouhaha of moving dancers and the frou-frou of skirts: it travelled from the small octagon hall, through the central salon to the tea-room, the ball-room and the card-room: it reverberated from the gallery in the ball-room to the maids' gallery: it distracted the ladies from their gossip and the gentlemen from their cards.