‘Good-evening, Miss Propert,’ he said. ‘I want you, if you will, to leave your work now, and come into the drawing-room to talk to my wife and daughter for a few minutes, while I ring for a cab for you. It is snowing hard.’
‘Oh, I would rather not do that,’ said Norah. ‘I have got great big overshoes: there they are filling up the corner of the room; I shan’t mind the snow. And, Mr Keeling, go back to the drawing-room, and say I’ve gone.’
It was clear to each of them that the same situation, that of Norah having been seen entering the house alone after dinner, and going to his private room, was in the mind of each of them. Norah, for her part, had a secret blush for the fact that she considered the incident at all, but her reply had revealed that she did, for she remembered that her brother had alluded to the question of her coming up here alone. But Keeling saw no absurdity in, so to speak, regularizing the situation, and his solution commended itself to him more than hers.
‘I should prefer that you came and were introduced to Mrs Keeling,’ he said. ‘I think that is better.’
Norah got up, smiling at him. Her internal blush had filtered through to her face.
‘If you think it best, I will,’ she said. ‘Whatever we do, don’t let us waste time here.’
‘Come then,’ he said.
He showed her the way to the drawing-room, where his wife and Alice were standing by the fire.
‘I have brought in Miss Propert,’ he said, ‘while I am getting a cab for her to take her home. It is snowing heavily. And this is my daughter, Miss Propert.’
Mrs Keeling made a great effort with herself to behave as befitted a mayoress and the daughter of a P. and O. captain. She thought it outrageous of her husband to have brought the girl in here without consulting her, not being clever enough to see the obvious wisdom, both from his standpoint and that of the girl, of his doing so. But she had the fairness to admit in her own mind that it was not the girl’s fault: Mr Keeling had told her to come into the drawing-room, and naturally she came. Therefore she behaved to her as befitted the Mayoress talking to a typewriter, and was very grand and condescending.