"Your boy's getting on, Mr. Caspar," he observed quietly.
The old man made a clucking like a disturbed hen.
"Dreadful," he said. "Dreadful."
Mrs. Lewknor laid two fingers on his arm.
"Mr. Caspar," she said.
He glanced down at her like a startled elephant. Then he seemed to thrill as though a wind of the spirit was blowing through him. The roses of a forgotten youth bloomed for a moment in his mottled cheeks. An incredible delicacy and tenderness inspired the face of this flabby old man.
"Miss Solomons!" he said, and lifting her little hand kissed it.
The Colonel withdrew discreetly; and in a moment his wife joined him, the lights dancing in her eyes.
"Pretty stiff!" grinned the Colonel—"in the public street and all."
They turned down Borough Lane by the Star and knocked Ruth up.