CHAPTER XVIII 236
connected with him -- Miss Ingram were the life and soul of the party . If he was absent from the room an hour , a perceptible dulness seemed to steal over the spirits of his guests ; and his re-entrance was sure to give a fresh impulse to the vivacity of conversation .
The want of his animating influence appeared to be peculiarly felt one day that he had been summoned to Millcote on business , and was not likely to return till late . The afternoon was wet : a walk the party had proposed to take to see a gipsy camp , lately pitched on a common beyond Hay , was consequently deferred . Some of the gentlemen were gone to the stables : the younger ones , together with the younger ladies , were playing billiards in the billiard-room . The dowagers Ingram and Lynn sought solace in a quiet game at cards . Blanche Ingram , after having repelled , by supercilious taciturnity , some efforts of Mrs . Dent and Mrs . Eshton to draw her into conversation , had first murmured over some sentimental tunes and airs on the piano , and then , having fetched a novel from the library , had flung herself in haughty listlessness on a sofa , and prepared to beguile , by the spell of fiction , the tedious hours of absence . The room and the house were silent : only now and then the merriment of the billiard-players was heard from above .
It was verging on dusk , and the clock had already given warning of the hour to dress for dinner , when little Adele , who knelt by me in the drawing-room window-seat , suddenly exclaimed -
" Voile , Monsieur Rochester , qui revient !"
I turned , and Miss Ingram darted forwards from her sofa : the others , too , looked up from their several occupations ; for at the same time a crunching of wheels and a splashing tramp of horse-hoofs became audible on the wet gravel . A post-chaise was approaching .
" What can possess him to come home in that style ?" said Miss Ingram . " He rode Mesrour ( the black horse ), did he not , when he went out ? and Pilot was with him : - what has he done with the animals ?"