He has complained!
Really, I need not have been surprised when it occurred, though I was scarcely expecting it.
It began this (Saturday) morning, at breakfast. Now, any outsider peeping into the sunny dining-room might have considered that the group round the breakfast-table made an ideal picture of English family life.
There was the gentle, grey-gowned mother pouring out coffee. The big, blonde son of the house, dressed for the City, sitting opposite to his fiancée—rather silent, but presumably only out of devotion.
The fiancée herself, a small brunette in dull-pink linen, looking, I think I may say, the picture of girlish sweetness, and being made much of by the two younger, taller, fair-haired sisters.
For no outsider could have suspected that the small, dark girl and the big, blonde man were secretly at daggers drawn. Nor have the family a notion that I’m anything less than “the ideal wife for Billy.”
I had come down last, to be greeted by the clarion voice of Theo, now no longer muffled in my presence.
“Nancy! Here’s news for you! Juno what? Our celebrated Uncle Albert Waters is coming down to inspect Billy’s sweetheart!”
“Oh!” I said smiling. I didn’t see then why I shouldn’t smile. I hadn’t yet heard anything about this other Mr. Waters.
“It’s to be hoped that he will admire her as much as we all do,” proclaimed Theodora; “because, if he doesn’t, won’t it be a ghastly week-end, Mother?”