"You'd better look out, you know," she said; "mamma's just furious because papa's not come back."
"But it's not my fault, pussie," said John. "She can't put me in the corner for it."
"Well, if you happen to be there——" began Lucy, with an air of experience.
"We must really start, Lucy dear," urged Suzette.
"What have you come to see mamma about?" asked Vera shrilly.
"To find out how to keep little girls in order," answered John, facetiously rebuking curiosity.
"I expect you've come about papa," observed Vera, with disconcerting calmness and an obvious contempt for his joke.
"I'm going to start, anyhow," declared poor Suzette. "Come along, dears, do!"
"Well, if there's a great row, Garrett'll hear some of it and tell us," said Sophy, consoling herself and her sisters as they reluctantly walked away from the centre of interest.
John Fanshaw's happiness was with him still—the happiness which Caylesham's cheque had brought. It was not banked yet, but it would be to-morrow; and in the last two days John had taken steps to reassure everybody, to tell everybody that they would be paid without question or difficulty, to scatter the cloud of gossip and suspicion which had gathered round his credit in the City. It was now quite understood that John's firm had weathered any trouble which had threatened it, and could be trusted and fully relied on again. Hence John's happy mind, and, a result of the happy mind, a sanguine and eager wish to effect some good, to bring about some sort of reconciliation and a modus vivendi in the Courtland family. His hopes were not visionary or unreasonable: he did not expect to establish romantic bliss there; a modus vivendi commended itself to him as the best way of expressing what he was going to suggest to Lady Harriet. In this flush of happy and benevolent feeling he was really glad that he had consented to undertake the embassy.