But time had not flown. Both of them had been supposing it must be ten o’clock—at least ten, probably much later; so that when he saw it was only nine he was disconcerted as well as astonished.
He didn’t quite know what to do. To leave so early would not be respectful, he felt, to his excellent mother-in-law; to hold his watch up to his ear in order to make sure it hadn’t stopped—it must have stopped—was an impulse he resisted as discourteous. Yet he wanted to go away. Whatever his watch declared, he felt it was long past bedtime.
‘Would you like me,’ he suggested, fidgeting in his chair a little, ‘to say prayers for you and your household before I go?’
‘Very much,’ said Catherine politely, waking up; she was the last person to baulk any clergyman who should want to pray. ‘Only there isn’t——’
She hesitated, anxious not to seem to complain. She had been going to say there wasn’t any household; instead, she inquired whether she should call Mrs. Mitcham.
‘Pray do,’ said Stephen.
Mrs. Mitcham came.
Then it appeared there wasn’t a prayer-book. The prayer-books, both hers and Mrs. Mitcham’s—it was most unfortunate—had been left behind at Chickover.
Stephen stood thoughtfully on the hearth-rug. Mrs. Mitcham, with the expression of one already in church, waited with decent folded hands for whatever of unction should descend on her. Catherine reflected that she hadn’t left her furs behind at Chickover, nor her trinkets, and wondered whether perhaps Stephen might be reflecting this too and drawing his conclusions.
But Stephen was not. He was merely turning over in his mind what, cut off from the assistance of the prayer-book, he should say to these two women as a good-night benediction, and so with grace be able to go back to his lodging to bed.