"However did you make him stand up, dear?" she asked, regarding the Mercury which had winged his way from her garret. "We haven't been upstairs yet, remember."
"And you won't go till you're tired of life," returned the host. "It abounds in trapdoors and, aside from my affection for you, the furniture down here couldn't stand being fallen on."
Being turned ceilingward, Mrs. Fabian's lorgnette discovered that branches of bay had been woven through the rafters in some places. She shrugged her shoulders.
"You'll get rained on in this dilapidated old place," she said. "A few bay leaves can't deceive me."
"Madam! Are you aware that you are talking about the Villa Chantecler? That roof is as tight as a drum."
Mrs. Fabian stirred the lemon in her substantially thick cup; and looked admiringly at the energetic host.
"I only hope, Phil," she sighed, "that you aren't too practical to succeed in your profession. So few artists would know how to mend a roof or even remember the necessity for it. I hope it isn't a bad sign."
Edgar, sitting with Violet on the railing, drinking tea, heard his mother's comment.
"A good deal in that, I think," he remarked softly. "I've never seen any of Phil's things except that rough black-and-white stuff he has in there. He never seemed to me to have a particle of temperament."
Violet was inclined to agree. She had seen nothing amusing in Philip's chaff about the peacock. She thought it quite as silly as were the other comments on the robin.