When it was time for me to depart, Ernest rose too, but not Dawn. Ernest's face went down, Eweword's brightened.
"Miss Dawn is not coming over now, but later on," I said.
The men's glances reversed once more. As the former and I departed—Ernest carrying a wrap for me—I heard Eweword say—
"Well, come on, Dawn, you're not going to Grosvenor's after all. It seems that old party was only pulling my leg."
Ernest good-naturedly struggled to talk with me, but I spared him the ordeal, and, arrived at Grosvenor's, interestedly studied them to discover what manner of procedure "trying to ape the swells" might be—the swells of Noonoon—the doctor who thought I might "peg out" any minute, and the bank managers and the parsons.
The only difference to be observed between the tea-table at Clay's and Grosvenor's was that at the latter the equivalents of Uncle Jake and Andrew did not appear in a coatless condition, were treated to the luxury of table-napkins, and Mrs Grosvenor, who served, attended to people according to their rank instead of their position at the table, and entrusted them with the sugar-basin and milk-jug themselves. Farther than this there was no distinction, and this was not an alarming one. Certainly Miss Grosvenor, who had not enjoyed half Dawn's educational advantages, did not as glaringly flout syntax, and slang was not so conspicuous in her vocabulary. She and Ernest got on so well that none but my practised eyes could detect that as the evening advanced his brown ones occasionally wandered towards the entrance door, which showed that much as Miss Grosvenor had got him out of his shell, she had not obliterated Dawn.
That young lady arrived at about a quarter to ten, and we started homewards, determining to go a long way round, first by way of the Grosvenor's vehicle road to town, by this gaining the public highway, along which we would walk to the entrance to grandma's demesne. This was preferable to a short-cut and rolling under the barbed-wire fencing in the long grass sopping with dew, which at midnight or thereabouts would stiffen with the soft frosts of this region that would flee before the sun next morning.
Dawn's cheeks were scarlet from rowing on the river with "Dora" Eweword, and she spoke of her jaunt as soon as we got outside, apparently pregnant with the knowledge innate in the dullest of her sex, that the most efficacious way of giving impetus to the love of one lover is to have another.
This, however, is another art which, like good cooking, must be "done to the turn," and in this instance there was danger of it being done too soon, as Ernest's amour had not taken firm root yet; and a man, unless he be either of gigantic pluck or no honour at all, will not hurry to interfere with the secured property of another man.
They chatted in a desultory fashion while I manœuvred to relieve them of my presence. The night was lit by a million stars, paling towards the east, where behind the hills a waning moon was putting in an appearance. The electric lights of the town scintillated like artificial stars, and away down the long valley could be seen here and there the twinkle of a farmhouse light, showing where some held mild wassail or a convivial evening; for there were not many of the agriculturalists, tired from their heavy toil, who were otherwise out of bed at this ungodly hour of the night.