The launching was scarcely a success, however, or so Joe Webb inferred, when, having claimed his horse at the stable, he rode past the rectory on his homeward way. The Misses Stanley were just then leaving the house, looking flushed and indignant, the wife following them to the door with deprecatory looks which changed into dismay as they departed without a sign of leave-taking, and Betsey in the background, too crushed and ashamed to be aware even that it was Joe as he went by.
Whatever unpleasantness occurred passed harmlessly by Muriel. She was walking with Gerald down by the river's bank--her very first walk with an acknowledged lover, for hitherto they had kept up the boy and girl traditions of their earlier friendship, and these now were discarded for the first time as the petals fall from the blossom when their work is done, and they can lend no more assistance to the forming fruit. She missed the altercation, and her aunts took care that she should not hear of it.
It was a fortnight later, it was August, and it was dusk. Having dined, the men had stepped forth through open windows to smoke upon their lawns, the ladies, not far off, snuffing the fragrance wafted through the gloom, or, Canadian-wise, setting out on visitations to their neighbours' precincts, or receiving uninvited raiders on their own; the middle-aged to sit and fan and gossip lazily, the young to sing or even dance, chasing the sultry oppression with active exercise, as youth alone is privileged to do.
Jordan had dined, and his shadowy figure would show now and then sharp against the sky, to be lost momentarily again on the dim background of surrounding trees. Only the red spark of his cigar was always seen, travelling back and forth fitfully across the dusky vagueness. Now it would flash out bright and travel briskly, and then anon it would dwindle and grow dim in rusty redness, creeping along or even stationary for a while, starting again into brightness and hurried movement--signs of pre-occupation, doubt, and suppressed excitement in the smoker.
"Ho! Jordan." The hail came suddenly out of the dimness; the light of another cigar drawing near gradually, like the drowsy flight of a belated beetle, being the only sign that Jordan was no longer alone. He started, pulling briskly at his cigar till it glowed and lighted up not only his own features, but those of Ralph Herkimer, who now stood before him.