Mrs. Eliot offered only the defense of a patient smile; Mr. Eliot looked puzzled and oppressed; and for a time there was no conversation during the further progress of this uncomfortable meal. Nothing was to be heard in the room except the movements of a servant and the audible eating of fat little Robert, who was incurably natural with his food.
It was Muriel who finally decided to speak. “I’m sorry to have interrupted your conversation,” she said frostily. “Perhaps, though, you’d prefer not to say any more about me to papa and Robert while I’m here to explain what really happened, mamma.”
“Oh, nonsense!” Mr. Eliot said. “I suppose even the Pope gets ‘peevish’ now and then; it’s no deadly insult to say a person got a little peevish. We weren’t having a ‘conversation’ about you at all. We were talking about other matters, and just barely mentioned you.”
Muriel looked at him quickly. “What other things were you talking about?”
He laughed. “My! How suspicious you are!”
“Not at all; I simply asked you what other things you were talking about.”
Instead of replying, “About a distinguished young painter who saw you on the street and wants to paint your portrait,” Mr. Eliot laughed again and rose, having finished his coffee. He came round the table to her and pinched her ear on his way to the door. “Good gracious!” he said. “Don’t you suppose your mother and I ever talk about anything except what a naughty daughter we have?” And with that he departed. Mrs. Eliot said, “Excuse me,” rather coldly to Muriel, followed him to the front door, and failed to return.
Muriel did not see her mother again during the afternoon, and in the evening Mr. and Mrs. Eliot went out to a dinner of their bridge-club, leaving their daughter to dine in the too audible company of Robert. She dressed exquisitely, though not for Robert, whose naturalness at the table brought several annoyed glances from her. “Can’t you manage it more quietly, Robert?” she asked at last, with the dessert. “Try!”
“Whaffor?” he inquired.
“Only because it’s so hideous!”