They have got down to dinner and as far as the fish by this time, so are all feeling friendly and good-natured.
"Tell you what you'll do, Mab," says Guy. "You shall come over here next week to stay with us, and bring baby and nurse with you,—and Tom, whether he likes it or not. We can give him as much good shooting as will cure him of his laziness."
"Yes, Mabel, indeed you must," breaks in Lady Chetwoode's gentle voice. "I want to see that dear child very badly, and how can I notice all her pretty ways unless she stays in the house with me?"
"Say yes, Mrs. Steyne," entreats Taffy: "I shall die of grief if you refuse."
"Oh, that! Yes, auntie, I shall come, thank you, if only to preserve Mr.—Taffy's life. But indeed I shall be delighted to get back to the dear old home for a while; it is so dull at Steynemore all by ourselves."
"Thank you, darling," says Tom, meekly.
After dinner Mrs. Steyne, who has taken a fancy to Lilian, seats herself beside her in the drawing-room and chatters to her unceasingly of all things known and unknown. Guy, coming in later with the other men, sinks into a chair near Mabel, and with Miss Beauchamp's Fanchette upon his knee employs himself in stroking it and answering Mabel's numerous questions. He hardly looks at Lilian, and certainly never addresses her, in which he shows his wisdom.
"No, I can't bear the country," Mrs. Steyne is saying. "It depresses me."
"In the spring surely it is preferable to town," says Lilian.
"Is it? I suppose so, because I have so often heard it; but my taste is vitiated. I am not myself out of London. Of course Tom and I go somewhere every year, but it is to please fashion we go, not because we like it. You will say I exaggerate when I tell you that I find music in the very roll of the restless cabs."