Just at these words the edge of the red sun sank behind the hills, and the last level beams of sunset gave place to the tender gray of twilight, except on the uplands of Revington, where they lingered for a few seconds.
“Ay,” said William allegorising; “the shade for William Maubray; the golden light of life for Vane Trevor! Vane Trevor of Revington! William Maubray of⸺nothing at all!⸺charming contrast.”
And looking still on Gilroyd Hall, and the fading image of Violet Darkwell and Psyche frisking about, no longer white, but a moving gray spot on the sloping grass, he said, touching his finger-tips to his lip, and waving them lightly towards her, “Good-bye, little Vi; good-bye, wicked little Vi; good-bye, dear, wicked little Vi, and may God bless you, you darling!”
So with a sigh he turned and walked up to Revington. It is a good ancestral looking place, only a little too large for the estate as it now is. The Trevors had parted from time to time with many acres, and a house upon a scale which would have corresponded with three times their income, was rather a tax upon what remained.
“I never liked this place,” thought William as the iron gate clanged behind him; “I always thought it gloomy, and stingy, and pompous. I wish he had let this dinner alone, I’d have been pleasanter at home, though it’s as well, perhaps, to hear what he has to say. I think he has something to say; but, hang it, why could not he tell it as well at Gilroyd, and to the people it concerns? why need he bring me this stupid walk up his hill?” And William as he talked was switching the laurel leaves at his side with his cane, and leaving here and there half a leaf or a whole one on the gravel, and sometimes half a dozen—not quite unconsciously; there was something of defiance, I am afraid, in this trespass.
William came in; the hall was not lighted; he was received in the dusk by a serious and rather broad gentleman in black, who took his hat and cane with a bow, led him through an anteroom, illuminated dismally by a single lamp, and announced his name at the drawing-room, where Vane Trevor received him, advancing from the hearthrug to the middle of the room, in an unexceptionable evening toilet, and in French boots, and shook hands with just a little inclination which implied something of state, though smilingly performed.
Mr. Trevor was very conscious of the extent of the mansion of Revington, of the scale of the rooms, of the pictures, and in short of everything that was grand about him.
William was a little disgusted and rather uncomfortable, and ate his soup, and cutlets, and kickshaws, gloomily, while Trevor, leaning upon his elbow, talked away with a conscious superiority that was at once depressing and irritating.
They had a jug of claret—not the best even in Trevor’s cellar, I am afraid—after dinner, and sat facing the fire, and sipping that nectar.
“Snug little room this,” said Trevor, looking along the ceiling with his napkin over his knee, and his claret glass in his fingers. “It isn’t the parlour, only a sort of breakfast-room. The parlour, you know, is a—it’s considered a handsome room. Thirty-five feet by twenty.”