‘I wonder you did not,’ said Ida, as she hastened to compound the tea.
‘Forgot it,’ he lazily droned, ‘forgot it. Attractions, you know,’ and, as she brought the cup to the window, with a lump of sugar in the tongs, ‘when sugar fingers are—’ and the speech ended in a demonstration at the fingers that made Ida laugh, blush, and say, ‘Oh, for shame, Mr. Brady!’
‘You had better come in, Mr. Brady,’ called Mrs. Morton. ‘You can’t drink it comfortably there, and you’ll be upsetting it. We are down in the dining-room to-day, because—’
The cause, necessary to her gentility, was lost, as Ida proceeded to let him in at the front door, and he presently deposited himself on the sofa, grumbling complacently at the bore of holidays, especially bank holidays. His crew would have been ready to strike, he declared, if he had taken them out of harbour, or he would have asked the ladies to come on a cruise out of the way of it all.
‘Why, thank you very much, Mr. Brady, but, really in my poor brother, Lord Northmoor’s state, I don’t know that it would be etiquette.’
‘Ah, yes. By the bye, how’s the governor?’
‘Very sad, strength failing. I hardly expect to hear he is alive to-morrow,’ and Mrs. Morton’s handkerchief was raised.
‘Oh ay, sad enough, you know! I say, will it make any difference to you?’
‘My poor, dear brother! Well, it ought, you know. Indeed it would if it had not been for that dear little boy. My poor Herbert!’
‘It must have been an awful sell for him.’