During the busy time Nell and Selma were with the Penningtons, Bonard and Leon made a sudden, brief raid on the city. Their trip had been spur of the moment, initiated by Bonard, eagerly agreed to by Leon. They were noisy and mysterious about the reason for their coming, both at home and at the Pennington house during the three hours they allowed themselves to be persuaded to dine and visit. Most of the visit was the occasion for Lauretta to charm the young men. Those three hardly allowed attention to veer to anyone else for even a moment; the others became audience. After the young men had taken their leave, Lauretta exclaimed delightedly that Mr. Davis must be as shy as he was enamored, seeing how he had insisted on talking to her because he was evidently too embarrassed to talk to his beloved in company; whereas Mr. Kendrick clearly, she avowed, had a preference for her sister Sarah, because it was well known that young gentlemen avoided talking to those they favored, and chattered easily only with those present they would scarcely recognize were they to meet them again.

Sarah made no comment on this diagnosis of the evening, but Selma looked sharply questioning at her Aunt Nell, who yawned. If there was one thing, Nell allowed, that she had no knowledge of, it was the ways of young men and what went on in their minds to dictate their perverse behavior; at which they all laughed and felt more friendly toward one another.

The reason for Bonard and Leon’s trip to Savannah was no mystery at all. They had come for a good time, for what Bonard called “a last spree.” They took lodgings at an inn, avoiding their old landlady who would have treated them like schoolboys again. They ate richly, drank immoderately, and went every night to the whorehouse they had known and often patronized during the years they attended Samuel Holt’s Academy for young gentlemen.

They returned home, a shaky and pale Bonard who, it was supposed, had been so bereft when his bride-to-be was absent in Savannah choosing clothes to please him that he had followed her there to make the best of whatever glimpses or brief periods of her company she could afford him; and a Leon who appeared to be amused and pleased with life, and himself most of all. After them came a preoccupied Selma with her proud Aunt Nell, the repository and giver of all knowledge about the dozens of garments that had been commissioned, designed, made, fitted, and finally approved.