“Well,” she said at last, “we did think you’d want to congratulate us.” To Mr. Marston some criticism of himself appeared to be implied in this remark. He pulled down his waistcoat, coughed, and went through the preliminaries usual to him when preparing to address the board. And, in a sense, this was a board meeting, a family board meeting.
“My dear Muriel,” he began, but he had advanced no further than these three words when the dinner gong sounded for the second time. It was a signal for Mrs. Marston to bustle forward.
“Yes, yes, but the dinner’ll be getting quite cold if we don’t go in at once. Don’t trouble to change, Mr. Whately, please don’t; but, Muriel, you must go up and do your hair, and if you have time change your frock.”
“Weren’t they lovely?” said Muriel, as she and Roland ran upstairs to wash. “I could have died with laughter.”
“You made me feel a pretty complete fool,” said Roland.
“Well, you made me feel very silly about three-quarters of an hour ago. I deserved a revenge.” And she scampered upstairs ahead of him.
Roland washed quickly and waited for her at the foot of the stairs. He was much too shy to go in alone.
“And they say that women are cowards,” said Muriel, when he confessed it to her. “Come along.”
The quarter of an hour that had elapsed since the sensational disclosure had given the company time to recover its balance, and when Muriel and Roland entered the room, they found that two empty seats were waiting for them side by side.
“Here they are,” said Mr. Marston, “and I hope that they’re thoroughly ashamed of themselves.” He felt himself again after a glass of sherry, and it was an occasion of which a father should make the most. It could only come once and he was prepared to enjoy it to the full. “To think of it, my dear, the difference between this generation and ours. Why, before I got engaged to your mother, Muriel, why, even before I began to court her, I went and asked her father’s permission. I can remember now how frightened I felt. We respected our parents in those days. We always asked their opinions first. But to-day—why, in you burst, late for dinner, and announce with calm effrontery that you’re going to be married. Why, at this rate, there won’t be any engagements at all in a short time; young people will just walk in at the front door and say: ‘We’re married.’ ”