“Oh, dear!” she said, with a mincing, apologetic gesture of her head; and then “Dear me!” Having committed the solecism, she found it necessary to draw attention to it.  She may have been a Shropshire Norman, but at that relaxed hour of the night, she displayed all the signs of the orthodox genteel attitude.

“I don’t know when I’ve been so tired,” she apologised.

But, indeed, she did owe us an apology for her yawning fit affected us all like a virulent epidemic.  In a moment we were every one of us trying to stifle the same desire, and each in our own way being overcome.  I must do Frank the justice to say that he, at least, displayed no sign of gentility.

“Oh!  Lord, mater, you’ve started us now,” he said, and gave away almost sensuously to his impulses, stretching and gaping in a way that positively racked us with the longing to imitate him.

“Really, my dear, no necessity for you,” began Mr. Jervaise, yawned more or less politely behind a very white, well-kept hand, and concluded, “no necessity for you or Olive to stay up; none whatever.  We cannot, in any case, do anything until the morning.”

“Even if she comes in, now,” supplemented Olive.

“As I’m almost sure she will,” affirmed Mrs. Jervaise.

And she must have put something of genuine confidence into her statement, for automatically we all stopped talking for a few seconds and listened again with the ears of faith for the return of the car.

“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.

“Going to bed?” Jervaise suggested.