"What's that?" says Tommy, appealing to Beauclerk for information.
"What's what?" says Beauclerk, who isn't in his usual amiable mood.
"What's the meaning of that thing Dicky said to me?"
"'So-long?' Oh that's Browne's charming way of saying good-bye."
"Oh!" says Tommy, thoughtfully. He runs it through his busy brain, and brings it out at the other end satisfactorily translated. "I know," says he: "Go long! That's what he meant! But I think," indignantly, "he needn't be rude, anyway."
The children have hardly gone when Joyce and Dysart enter the room.
"I hope I'm not dreadfully late," cries Joyce, carelessly, taking off her cap, and giving her head a little light shake, as if to make her pretty soft hair fall into its usual charming order. "I have no idea what the time is."
"Broken your watch, Dysart?" says Beauclerk, in a rather nasty tone.
"Come and sit here, dearest, and have your tea," says Lady Baltimore, making room on the lounge beside her for Joyce, who has grown a little red.
"It is so warm here," says she, nervously, that one remark of Beauclerk's having, somehow, disconcerted her. "If—if I might——"