"I'll take the front seat, if you like," the stranger said, without, however, showing much inclination to move.
"Oh, no; stay where you are," Gifford answered. "I fancy I am the smallest of the three; I shall be quite comfortable there. Come along, Harry."
With no very amiable face Kelson got in and took the vacant seat by the stranger. His attitude was not conducive to geniality, and so for a while there was silence. At length as they turned from the station approach on to the main road the stranger spoke. His deep-toned voice had a musical ring in it, yet somehow to Gifford's way of thinking it was detestable. Perhaps it was the speaker's rather aggressive and, to a man, objectionable personality, which made it seem so.
"I am sorry to inconvenience you," he said, more with an air of saying the right thing than from any real touch of regret. "On an occasion like this they ought to provide more conveyances. But country towns are hopeless."
"Oh, it is all right," Gifford responded politely. "The drive is not very long."
"A mile?" The man's musical inflection jarred on Gifford, who began to wonder whether their companion could be a professional singer. One of their own class he certainly was not.
"I presume you gentlemen are going to the Hunt Ball?" he asked.
"Yes," Gifford answered.
"Rather a new departure having it in a private house," the man said. "Quite a sound idea, I have no doubt Morriston will do us as well—much better than we should fare at the local hotel or Assembly Rooms."
"Are you going?" They were the first words Kelson had uttered since the start, and the slight surprise in their tone was not quite complimentary. It must have so struck the other, seeing that he replied with a touch of resentment: