"No, mummie."
A silence.
"'Gentle Jesus'—Go on now, Cinthie—'Gentle Jesus—'"
"'Gentle Jesus'—sat on a wall," said the small voice, and burst into a peal of laughing. There was a rustling and Clem appeared at the nursery door gowned and gloved, her face bearing traces of smothered laughter. But from the door she called back, in a voice intended to be most hauntingly sad:
"Mother's sorry her little girl is so naughty to-night. Good-night, Cinthie."
"G'night," was the cheerful response.
Clem came out into the hall and shut the door, and putting her arm in Poppy's hurried to the drawing-room, where Portal was offering up loud prayers for patience, and bemoaning the miserable, wasted lives of all married men.
"Time is simply nothing to them, I tell you!" he chanted. "It is no concern of theirs! They cannot wear it, nor give it to their offspring to play with! As for punctuality, it is a rule invented for men and dogs only—and rickshaw pullers. Ours has been waiting at the gate for twenty minutes—but that's all right—what do we care for the first act of a play?"
Clem took not the slightest notice. She turned to Poppy.
"And, darling, when you've finished your coffee I wish you'd go in and hear her prayers. She feels very much injured to-night—you will, won't you? I am so vexed that we have to go out and leave you—and I do wish you would have come too. It might have made you forget all about that wicked fire."