Sir Patrick, having no early associations with the place, openly admitted that his residence in Kent preyed on his spirits, and that he would have infinitely preferred a room at the inn in the village.  The effort to sustain his customary vivacity was not encouraged by persons and circumstances about him.  Lady Lundie’s fidelity to the memory of the late Sir Thomas, on the scene of his last illness and death, persisted in asserting itself, under an ostentation of concealment which tried even the trained temper of Sir Patrick himself.  Blanche, still depressed by her private anxieties about Anne, was in no condition of mind to look gayly at the last memorable days of her maiden life.  Arnold, sacrificed—­by express stipulation on the part of Lady Lundie—­to the prurient delicacy which forbids the bridegroom, before marriage, to sleep in the same house with the bride, found himself ruthlessly shut out from Sir Patrick’s hospitality, and exiled every night to a bedroom at the inn.  He accepted his solitary doom with a resignation which extended its sobering influence to his customary flow of spirits.  As for the ladies, the elder among them existed in a state of chronic protest against Lady Lundie, and the younger were absorbed in the essentially serious occupation of considering and comparing their wedding-dresses.  The two young gentlemen from the University performed prodigies of yawning, in the intervals of prodigies of billiard playing.  Smith said, in despair, “There’s no making things pleasant in this house, Jones.”  And Jones sighed, and mildly agreed with him.

On the Sunday evening—­which was the evening before the marriage—­the dullness, as a matter of course, reached its climax.

But two of the occupations in which people may indulge on week days are regarded as harmless on Sunday by the obstinately anti-Christian tone of feeling which prevails in this matter among the Anglo-Saxon race.  It is not sinful to wrangle in religious controversy; and it is not sinful to slumber over a religious book.  The ladies at Ham Farm practiced the pious observance of the evening on this plan.  The seniors of the sex wrangled in Sunday controversy; and the juniors of the sex slumbered over Sunday books.  As for the men, it is unnecessary to say that the young ones smoked when they were not yawning, and yawned when they were not smoking.  Sir Patrick staid in the library, sorting old letters and examining old accounts.  Every person in the house felt the oppression of the senseless social prohibitions which they had imposed on themselves.  And yet every person in the house would have been scandalized if the plain question had been put:  You know this is a tyranny of your own making, you know you don’t really believe in it, you know you don’t really like it—­why do you submit?  The freest people on the civilized earth are the only people on the civilized earth who dare not face that question.

The evening dragged its slow length on; the welcome time drew nearer and nearer for oblivion in bed.  Arnold was silently contemplating, for the last time, his customary prospects of banishment to the inn, when he became aware that Sir Patrick was making signs to him.  He rose and followed his host into the empty dining-room.  Sir Patrick carefully closed the door.  What did it mean?