"What could the servants be about?" demanded Daisy.
She marched before Tom into the morning-room, where Fulvia sat painting flowers upon a screen, and Nigel stood, gloves in hand. Daisy had seen him enter a minute earlier, peeping over the balusters on her way down. She had no business to bring Mr. Elvey to this retreat, as she knew well enough; only she did not pause to think.
"Where is Daisy? I want her," Nigel was saying when Daisy flung the door open.
"Here's Mr. Elvey come to call on Nigel," quoth Daisy, still with lifted chin and injured voice.
Fulvia did not get up. She shot one indignant glance at the culprit, then held out a hand streaked with paint.
"Daisy ought to have taken you to the drawing-room," she said. "We don't keep this in trim for callers."
Tom assured her that it was a charming room—delightful, natural, unsophisticated. He seemed bent upon using all the adjectives he could find. Nigel's greeting was polite, but not of the most cordial description; for it might be that this fellow was to carry off his dearest hope before his eyes. He could not be warm.
Tom seemed blissfully unconscious of any lack of welcome. He deposited his hat on one chair, and sat down upon another, into an open box of paints.
Fulvia uttered a warning word too late, and Daisy shrieked, then collapsed into a convulsion of laughter.
Tom got up, looking mildly at the box, which had suffered dilapidation from his weight, and walked to the chimney-piece. He could not better have displayed the streaky state of his own coat, one glimpse of which in rear sent the younger girl into a fresh paroxysm.