As the General passed into the drawing–room to say good–by to Mrs. Clavering, he was surprised to find Baskerville still sitting at the tea–table. Baskerville had not been asked to stay to dinner, but when Mrs. Luttrell was ready to leave a very mild invitation from Mrs. Clavering, who had no notion of the duration of fashionable visits, had made him ask permission to remain—a permission which Mrs. Luttrell gave with a wink. Anne was not displeased with him for staying—her eyes and smile conveyed as much; and man–like, Baskerville had succumbed to the temptation. But when General Brandon came in and found him the very last visitor in the drawing–room he felt himself distinctly caught, and made his farewells with more haste than grace. Mrs. Clavering urged him to come again, and Anne’s tones conveyed _auf wiedersehen_ to him as eloquently as a tone can without specific words; nevertheless, when Baskerville found himself out in the cool, crisp night, he began to doubt, as he had ever doubted, the propriety of his going to Senator Clavering’s house at all. But General Brandon was saying to him most earnestly, as they stood under the lamp–post before going their different ways:— “Senator Clavering is a very cruelly maligned man; of that I am certain. And I think, Mr. Baskerville, that most of the testimony you and the Civil Service League and the K. F. R. attorneys have collected will break down when it is introduced before the committee. Why, Senator Clavering tells me that he has been accused, on evidence that wouldn’t hang a dog, of wholesale bribery, of having bought his seat in the Senate, of having bought up courts and legislatures. But he will be triumphantly vindicated—I make no doubt at all of that.” “I wish he might be,” replied Baskerville, with a degree of sincerity that would scarcely have been credited; “but I don’t think he can be.” When General Brandon let himself into his own house, dinner was ready to be served. He was full of enthusiasm about the Claverings. At the table he assured Elizabeth of his entire belief in Clavering and of his respect for him. Mrs. Clavering he pronounced to be a most excellent and unpretending woman, Anne altogether admirable, Reginald Clavering a worthy fellow and a sound churchman, and Élise Denman and Lydia Clavering two much–abused young women, in whom mere high spirits and unconventionality had been mistaken for a degree of imprudence of which he felt sure they could never be guilty. Then he mentioned Clavering’s proposed visit, and asked Elizabeth if she would, the next day, find the trunk in which he kept certain papers, open it, and get out of it everything dated between ’56 and ’61.