“Well, when I make my fortune, I’ll keep it in the funds,” said Maubray.
“I strongly advise you,” said Trevor, with admirable solemnity. “Have some coffee? And—here’s curacoa.”
“When will he talk about Vi?” thought William, as he set down his coffee cup; “he can’t have brought me here to dinner merely to hear that pompous lecture.”
And indeed, it seemed to William that Trevor had something more to say, but did not know how to begin it.
CHAPTER XVII.
MOONSHINE
And now, for they kept early hours at Gilroyd, William, with a peep at his watch, declared he must go, and Trevor popped on his fez and produced his cigars, and he set out with Maubray, in the moonlight, to see his friend out of the grounds.
As they walked down the slope, with the thick chestnuts of Gilroyd Hall and two of its chimneys full in view—the misty lights and impenetrable shadows of moonlight—and all the familiar distances translated into such soft and airy outline—the landscape threw them, I dare say, somewhat into musing, and that sort of sympathy with the pensive moods of nature which has, time out of mind, made moonlight the lamp of lovers. And some special associations of the scenery induced them to smoke on in silence for some time, insensibly slackening their pace, the night scene was so well worth lingering over.