When an opportunity offered, Clara went silently out of the hot dining-room and through a door to a porch at the back of the house. The kitchen door was open and the waitresses and cooks from town were preparing to depart. One of the young women came out into the darkness accompanied by a man, evidently one of the guests. They had both been drinking and stood for a moment in the darkness with their bodies pressed together. “I wish it were our wedding night,” the man's voice whispered, and the woman laughed. After a long kiss they went back into the kitchen.
A farm dog appeared and going up to Clara licked her hand. She went around the house and stood back of a bush in the darkness near where the carriages were being loaded. Her father with Steve Hunter and his wife came and got into a carriage. Tom was in an expansive, generous mood. “You know, Steve, I told you and several others my Clara was engaged to Alfred Buckley,” he said. “Well, I was mistaken. The whole thing was a lie. The truth is I shot off my mouth without talking to Clara. I had seen them together and now and then Buckley used to come out here to the house in the evening, although he never came except when I was here. He told me Clara had promised to marry him, and like a fool I took his word. I never even asked. That's the kind of a fool I was and I was a bigger fool to go telling the story. All the time Clara and Hugh were engaged and I never suspected. They told me about it to-night.”
Clara stood by the bush until she thought the last of the guests had gone. The lie her father had told seemed only a part of the evening's vulgarity. Near the kitchen door the waitresses, cooks and musicians were being loaded into the bus that had been driven out from the Bidwell House. She went into the dining-room. Sadness had taken the place of the anger in her, but when she saw Hugh the anger came back. Piles of dishes filled with food lay all about the room and the air was heavy with the smell of food. Hugh stood by a window looking out into the dark farmyard. He held his hat in his hand. “You might put your hat away,” she said sharply. “Have you forgotten you're married to me and that you now live here in this house?” She laughed nervously and walked to the kitchen door.