Yet they seemed hardly to notice him when he slid awkwardly into his chair.

He looked calculatingly over the table and asked, in tones that somehow seemed to tell of injury, of personal affront: "What you having supper for at this time of night ?" His grandfather regarded him now not unkindly, while Clytie seemed confused.
"It's more'n long past midnight!" he insisted.
"Huh! it ain't only a quarter past seven," put in his superior brother.
He seemed about to say more, but a glance from the grandfather silenced him.
So _that_ was as late as he had stayed--a quarter after seven?
He was ready now to rage at any taunt, and began to eat in haughty silence.

He was still eating when his grandfather and Allan left the table, and then he began to feel a little grateful that they had not noticed or asked annoying questions, or tried to be funny or anything.

Over a final dish of plum preserves and an imposing segment of marble cake he relented so far as to tell Clytie something of his adventures--especially since she had said that the big hall-clock was very likely slow--that it must surely be a lot later than a quarter past seven.

The circumstances had combined to produce a narrative not entirely perspicuous--the two clear points being that They do everything in a whisper, and that Clytie ought to get rid of Penny at once, since he could not be depended upon at great moments.
As to ever sleeping under a tree, Clytie discouraged him.