Meanwhile Louis Glanville had returned to the House and told his sister in the most innocent manner that he had been in the company of St. Cleeve that afternoon, getting a few wrinkles on astronomy; that they had grown so friendly over the fascinating subject as to leave him no alternative but to invite St. Cleeve to dine at Welland the same evening, with a view to certain researches in the library afterwards.
‘I could quite make allowances for any youthful errors into which he may have been betrayed,’ Louis continued sententiously, ‘since, for a scientist, he is really admirable. No doubt the Bishop’s caution will not be lost upon him; and as for his birth and connexions,—those he can’t help.’
Lady Constantine showed such alacrity in adopting the idea of having Swithin to dinner, and she ignored his ‘youthful errors’ so completely, as almost to betray herself. In fulfilment of her promise to see him oftener she had been intending to run across to Swithin on that identical evening. Now the trouble would be saved in a very delightful way, by the exercise of a little hospitality which Viviette herself would not have dared to suggest.
Dinner-time came and with it Swithin, exhibiting rather a blushing and nervous manner that was, unfortunately, more likely to betray their cause than was Viviette’s own more practised bearing. Throughout the meal Louis sat like a spider in the corner of his web, observing them narrowly, and at moments flinging out an artful thread here and there, with a view to their entanglement. But they underwent the ordeal marvellously well. Perhaps the actual tie between them, through being so much closer and of so much more practical a nature than even their critic supposed it, was in itself a protection against their exhibiting that ultra-reciprocity of manner which, if they had been merely lovers, might have betrayed them.
After dinner the trio duly adjourned to the library as had been planned, and the volumes were brought forth by Louis with the zest of a bibliophilist. Swithin had seen most of them before, and thought but little of them; but the pleasure of staying in the house made him welcome any reason for doing so, and he willingly looked at whatever was put before him, from Bertius’s Ptolemy to Rees’s Cyclopædia.
The evening thus passed away, and it began to grow late. Swithin who, among other things, had planned to go to Greenwich next day to view the Royal Observatory, would every now and then start up and prepare to leave for home, when Glanville would unearth some other volume and so detain him yet another half-hour.
‘By George!’ he said, looking at the clock when Swithin was at last really about to depart. ‘I didn’t know it was so late. Why not stay here to-night, St. Cleeve? It is very dark, and the way to your place is an awkward cross-cut over the fields.’
‘It would not inconvenience us at all, Mr. St. Cleeve, if you would care to stay,’ said Lady Constantine.
‘I am afraid—the fact is, I wanted to take an observation at twenty minutes past two,’ began Swithin.
‘Oh, now, never mind your observation,’ said Louis. ‘That’s only an excuse. Do that to-morrow night. Now you will stay. It is settled. Viviette, say he must stay, and we’ll have another hour of these charming intellectual researches.’