“That pays me!” Constance answered, drawing a long breath.  “But, Sally, will it never end?  It’s nearly eleven, now.”

“Thank heaven!  I’d lost all count of time.  The boys said they’d be here at eleven.  But Dorothy is not to know they’re within five miles of here.  She’d never forgive them.”

As she spoke a maid came to her elbow and handed her a note.  Retiring to a secluded corner to read it, Sally returned with triumphant eyes.  “We’re to go down the lawn to a gate that opens on the other road.  They’re there.  Now—­to get away from Dorothy.”

This proved difficult.

“Not let Neil take you back?  Why not?  How will you get back?  But you’re not going yet?”

“Both the girls have performed twice, with two encores.  You don’t expect any more of them this hot night?  Your bishop is going to sleep; do let him off and send him to bed.  Yes, we must go now.  They’ve sent for us.  Don’t bother about how we’re going to get back—­Neil will be thankful not to have to take us.”

Thus Sally.  And when Dorothy persisted in exclamations and questions her guests fell into a little gusto of enthusiasm over the stately old house which Neil had bought after he had to give up the Maxwell Lane place, and diverted Dorothy’s attention.  Sally also praised everything she could honestly praise in relation to the affair of the evening—­and not a thing she couldn’t, for Sally was the most honest creature alive.  Somehow at last she got her party away from their hostess, taking advantage of the bishop’s approach to whisper hastily—­“Here comes your guest of honour.  Now do attend to him and forget us!”—­and so had them all out a side door and off down the lawn out of range of the lighted windows.  As they hurried along in their airy dresses, they were pulling off long, hot gloves, and saying, still under their breath, “Oh, isn’t it good to get out?” They were laughing softly, and breathing deep breaths of the warm summer air, and looking up at the starlit sky.

“Now where is that gate?” They had reached the high fence at the back of the grounds.

“Here you are—­this way,” came back a low voice, and a doorway in the fence swung open.  There was a rush of skirts, and the four were out in the road at the back of the suburban place, a country road on which stood, most appropriately, a long hay-wagon, cushioned with hay and rugs, drawn by a pair of farm horses, with Jake Kelly in command.  Four other dark figures were grouped about the back end.

“You splendid things!”

“What a jolly idea!”

“Oh, what a delicious change from a hot music-room!”

“Here’s Mother Burnside, tucked away in the corner.  How good of you to come, you patient person!”

“Now tell us all about it,” demanded Donald Ferry of Sally, next whom, at the end of the load, he sat.  It may be noted that Jarvis had not been found, of late, at Sally’s elbow.  Without a suggestion of seeming avoidance on her part, or of umbrage on his, the two no longer fell to each other as a matter of course.  Sally’s plea had had the effect she wished for.  Both Constance and Janet appeared to like Jarvis immensely, and Sally could not detect any failure on his part to enjoy their society.  She told herself it was a very good thing that she had been so frank with him.