'Don't be a fool, Clissold. If we are to go to the theatre, we'd better not waste any more time. I want to see what kind of an actor our friend is.'
'Student of humanity,' jeered Maurice, 'even a provincial player is not beneath your notice. Cuvier was profound upon spiders. Penwyn has a mind of a wider range.'
'What is his name, by-the-bye?' mused James, thinking of Mr. Elgood. 'We don't even know his name, and we've asked him to supper. That's rather awkward, isn't it?'
'Be sure he will come. No doubt he has already speculated on the possibility of borrowing five pounds from you.'
Mr. Penwyn rang the bell and gave his orders with that easy air of a man unaccustomed to count the cost. The best supper the 'Waterfowl' could provide, at half-past eleven.
They walked along the lonely country road into Eborsham. The 'Waterfowl Inn' was upon one of the quietest, most obscure roads leading outside the city; not the great coach road to London, bordered for a mile beyond the town by snug villas, and band-boxical detached cottages—orderly homes of retired traders—but a by-road leading to a village or two, of no consequence save to the few humble folks who lived in them.
This road followed the wind of the river which traversed the lower end of Eborsham, and it was for its vicinity to the river, and a something picturesque in its aspect, that the two friends had chosen the 'Waterfowl' as their resting place. There was a small garden behind the inn which sloped to the edge of the stream, and a rustic summerhouse where the young men smoked their pipes after dinner.
Between the 'Waterfowl' and Eborsham the landscape was low and flat; on one side a narrow strip of marshy ground between road and river, with a scrubby brush here and there marking the boundary, on the other a tall neglected hedgerow at the top of a steep bank, divided from the road by a wide weedy ditch.
The two friends entered Eborsham through a Gothic archway called Lowgate. The old town had been a strongly fortified city, famous for its walls, and there were several of these stone gateways. The theatre stood in the angle of a small square, almost overshadowed by the mighty towers of the cathedral, as if the stage had gone to the church for sanctuary and protection from the intolerance of bigots.
Here Mr. Penwyn and Mr. Clissold placed themselves among the select few of the dress-circle, a cool and airy range of seats, whose sparsely scattered occupants listened with rapt attention to the gloomy prosings of 'The Stranger.' James Penwyn was not ravished by that Germanic drama. Even Mrs. Haller bored him. She dropped her h's, and expressed the emotions of grief and remorse by spasmodic chokings and catchings of her breath. But Mr. Penwyn lighted up a little when the Countess appeared, for the Countess had the large melancholy blue eyes of the girl he had met in the meadow.