"But as I said," Olive began again, abruptly ending the unhopeful suspense of our pause, "there's nothing more we can do by sitting up. And there's certainly no need for you to overtire yourself, mother."
"No, really not," urged Ronnie politely, "nor for you, either, sir," he added, addressing his host. "What I mean is, Frank and I'll do all that."
"Rather, let's get a drink," Frank agreed.
We wanted passionately to get away from each other and indulge ourselves privately in a very orgie of gapes and stretchings. And yet, we stuck there, idiotically, making excuses and little polite recommendations for the others to retire, until Frank with a drastic quality of determination that he sometimes showed, took command.
"Go on, mater," he said; "you go to bed." And he went up to her, kissed her in the mechanical way of most grown-up sons, and gently urged her in the direction of the stairs. She submitted, still with faint protestations of apology.
Olive followed, and with a last feint of hospitality, her father brought up the tail of the procession.
"Coming for a drink?" Frank asked me with a jerk of his head towards the extemporised buffet.
"Well, no, thanks. I think not," I said, seeking the relief afforded by the women's absence; although, now, that I could indulge my desire without restraint, the longing to gape had surprisingly vanished.
"Yes. Bed's the best place, just now," I lied.
"Right oh! Good-night, old chap," Ronnie said effusively.
I pretended to be going upstairs and they did not wait for me to disappear. As soon as they had left the Hall, I sneaked down again, recovered from the cloak-room the light overcoat I had worn on our expedition to the Farm--I have no idea to whom that overcoat belonged--borrowed a cap, and let myself out stealthily by the front door.
As I quietly shut the door behind me, a delicious whiff of night-stock drifted by me, as if it had waited there for all those long hours seeking entrance to the stale, dry air of the Hall.
And it must have been, I think, that scent of night-stock which gave me the sense of a completed episode, or first act, as I stood alone, at last, on the gravel sweep before the Hall. Already the darkness was lifting. The dawn was coming high up in the sky, a sign of fair weather.