"No, no!" he barked. "I can do it."
"Come on, Mary. Come and tie John's tie."
Mary came quietly forward.
"Let me do it for you, Bow," she said in her quiet, insinuating voice, looking at him with her inky eyes and standing in front of him till his knees felt weak and his throat strangled. He was purple in the face, struggling with his tie in the presence of the lambs.
"He'll never get it done," said Monica, from behind the yellow glare.
"Let me do it," said Mary, and lifting her hands decisively she took the two ends of the tie from him.
He held his breath and lifted his eyes to the ceiling and felt as if the front of his body were being roasted. Mary, the devil-puss, seemed endless ages fastening the tie. Then she twitched it at his throat and it was done, just as he was on the point of suffocation.
"Are those your best braces?" said Grace. "They're awfully pretty with rose-buds." And she fingered the band.
"I suppose you put on evening dress for the last dinner on board," said Aunt Matilda. "Nothing makes me cry like Auld Lang Syne, that last night, before you land next day. But it's fifteen years since I went over to England."
"I don't suppose we shall any of us ever go," said Grace longingly.