'And I am afraid his room is very hot and noisy,' sighed Wilmet.
'He is only tired and cross after his two nights at sea,' said Alda.
'Lance cross!'
'My dear Wilmet, it is very bad taste in families always to maintain each other's impeccability!'
Alda was still the only person capable of defeating Wilmet, and she managed to render her very uncomfortable before the end of the evening, when hours passed and still Felix did not come in; and Alda suggested, in the intervals of yawning, that Wilmet would soon learn how green it was to sit up, now that Felix had got out of leading-strings, and set up bachelor habits.
At first, Wilmet was highly indignant; but when Alda persisted that she was rather glad to see Felix like other young men, and that Wilmet would know better when she was married, and then yawned herself off to bed, there was a sense of great discomfort to accompany the solitary vigil, which not only involved fancies of possible accidents, but was harassed by this assault on faith in the virtue and sincerity of man. Could it really be the part of a wise woman to wink at being deceived as an inferior creature, with impossible expectations of truth and purity? Yet Alda knew the world!
How much heart-sickness was darned into Lance's impossible heel before the clock chimed two! A step, and not a policeman's, came along the pavement and paused at the door, as, while the bell was cautiously pulled, down she flew!
'My dear Mettie, I am so sorry, so ashamed, of not having sent home to tell you; but if I had made the least move, it might have upset everything!'
'What have you been about?'
'Going over Mowbray Smith's accounts.'