"A great pity," said Lesley's mother; and she looked quite complacently at the twelve silver spoons, which she was guarding so jealously, as if she feared they would be taken away from her.
Outside the doors, when the assembly had reluctantly dispersed, after an improvised collation, given by Caspar, of hot drinks and plum cake, a little crowd of men and boys cheered the departing hero of the day so valiantly that Lady Alice was almost glad to find herself once more driving through the dusky London streets with her husband at her side. Miss Brooke and Maurice had elected to walk home.
"There's one thing," said Caspar, rather later in the day, as a history of these experiences was unfolded to Lesley; "we quite, forgot to tell the good folks your mother's name and title. She was applauded to the echo as 'Mrs. Brooke.'"
"Oh, you must never tell them," said Lady Alice, hastily. "I do not want to be anything else, please—now."
"I wish they had let one know beforehand," said Maurice, "they kept it a dead secret—even from me."
"All the greater surprise for us," said Mr. Brooke. Then he looked at Maurice for a moment, and smiled. But it was long before they mentioned to each other what both had thought and felt in that heart-breaking minute of suspense when they believed that Caspar was deserted in the hour of need.
"Well," said Caspar Brooke, at length, "whatever may happen now"—and he made a pause which was fraught with graver meaning than he would have cared to put into words—"I can feel at any rate that 'I have had my say.' And you, Alice—well, my dear, you will always have those silver spoons to look at! So we have not done badly after all."
Like Sir Thomas More, he would have joked when going to the scaffold; but jokes under such circumstances have rather a ghastly sound in the ears of his family.