Mr. Bates said that he thought that he would.  As the same invitation was given on almost every Sunday throughout the year, and was invariably answered in the same way, there was not much excitement in this.  But Mr. Bates would not have dreamed of going in to dinner without being asked.

“That’s Medlicot’s trap,” said Mr. Bates, as they entered the yard.  “I heard wheels when they were in the horse paddock.”

Harry looked at the trap, and then went quickly into the house.

He walked with a rapid step onto the veranda, and there he found the sugar grower and his mother.  Mrs. Heathcote looked at her husband almost timidly.  She knew from the very sound of his feet that he was perturbed in spirit.  Under his own roof-tree he would certainly be courteous; but there is a constrained courtesy very hard to be borne, of which she knew him to be capable.  He first went up to the old lady, and to her his greeting was pleasant enough.  Harry Heathcote, though he had assumed the bush mode of dressing, still retained the manners of a high-bred gentleman in his intercourse with women.  Then, turning sharply round, he gave his hand to Mr. Medlicot.

“I am glad to see you at Gangoil,” he said; “I was not fortunate enough to be at home when you called the other day.  Mrs. Medlicot must have found the drive very hot, I fear.”

His wife was still looking into his face, and was reading there, as in a book, the mingled pride and disdain with which her husband exercising civility to his enemy.  Harry’s countenance wore a look not difficult of perusal, and Medlicot could read the lines almost as distinctly as Harry’s wife.

“I have asked Mrs. Medlicot to stay and dine with us,” she said, “so that she may have it cool for the drive back.”

“I am almost afraid of the bush at night,” said the old woman.

“You’ll have a full moon,” said Harry; “it will be as light as day.”  So that was settled.  Heathcote thought it odd that the man whom he regarded as his enemy, whom he had left at their last meeting in positive hostility, should consent to accept a dinner under his roof; but that was Medlicot’s affair, not his.

They dined at seven, and after dinner strolled out into the horse paddock, and down to the creek.  As they started, the three men went first, and the ladies followed them; but Bates soon dropped behind.  It was his rest day, and he had already moved quite as much as was usual with him on a Sunday.

“I think I was a little hard with you the other day,” said Medlicot, when they were alone together.

“I suppose we hardly understand each other’s ideas,” said Harry.  He spoke with a constrained voice, and with an almost savage manner, engendered by a determination to hold his own.  He would forgive any offense for which an apology was made, but no apology had been made as yet; and, to tell the truth, he was a little afraid that if they got into an argument on the matter Medlicot would have the best of it.  And there was, too, almost a claim to superiority in Medlicot’s use of the word “hard.”  When one man says that he has been hard to another, he almost boasts that, on that occasion, he got the better of him.