‘No; Theodore is at the school. They keep him late to get things ready for the inspection, and Petros had to go to the doctor’s to fetch something; but he will meet me if he is not kept waiting.’
‘It is not fit for a child like that to go alone so late,’ said Mr. White, who perhaps had imbibed Italian notions of the respectability of an escort. ‘I will walk down with her.’
Maura looked as if darkness were highly preferable to such a cavalier; but Miss Adeline was charmed to see them walk off together, and when her sister presently came in with Gillian and Fergus, she could not but plume herself a little on her achievement.
‘Then it was those two!’ exclaimed Jane. ‘I thought so from the other side of the street, but it was too dark to be certain; and besides, there was no believing it.’
‘Did not they acknowledge you?’
‘Oh no; they were much too busy.’
‘Talking. Oh, what fun!’ Adeline could not help observing in such glee that she looked more like ‘our youngest girl’ than the handsome middle-aged aunt.
‘But,’ suggested Fergus, somewhat astonished, ‘Stebbing says he is no end of a horrid brute of a screw.’
‘Indeed. What has he been doing?’
‘He only tipped him a coach wheel.’