Roderick took Violet straight to the end of the room, where his quick eye had espied Mrs. Tempest in her striking black and scarlet costume. He said nothing more about the Duchess or Lady Mabel; and, indeed, took Violet past the elder lady, who was sitting in one of the deep-set windows with Lady Southminster, without attempting to bring about any interchange of civilities.
"Captain Winstanley has been kind enough to go and look for the carriage, Violet," said Mrs. Tempest. "I told him we would join him in the vestibule directly I could find you. Where have you been all this time? You were not in the Lancers. Such a pretty set. Oh, here is Mrs. Scobel!" as the Vicar's wife approached them on her partner's arm, in a piteous state of dilapidation—not a bit of tulle puffing left, and all her rosebuds crushed as flat as dandelions.
"Such a delightful set!" she exclaimed gaspingly.
"I'm afraid your dress has suffered," said her partner.
"Not in the least." protested Mrs. Scobel, with the fortitude of that ladylike martyr to a clumsy carver, celebrated by Sydney Smith, who, splashed from head to foot, and with rills of brown gravy trickling down her countenance, vowed that not a drop had reached her.
"This," says the reverend wit, "I esteem the highest triumph of civilisation."
"Your carriage will be the third," the captain told Mrs. Tempest, while Roderick was putting Violet's cloak round her in the vestibule; "there are a good many people leaving already."
Roderick went with them to the carriage door, and stayed in the porch till they were gone. The last object Vixen saw under the Southminster lamps was the pale grave face of her old playfellow.
He went straight from the porch to the supper-room, not to find himself a place at one of the snug little tables, but to go to the buffet and pour out a glass of brandy, which he drank at a draught. Yet, in a general way, there was no man more abstemious than Roderick Vawdrey.
A quarter of an hour afterwards he was waltzing with Lady Mabel—positively the last dance before their departure.