“Well, she’d feel no more than is the case,” said he. “Give me Mrs. Per, my dear, when there’s Shakespeare or Chopin ahead, but not now. Such grimaces as she’s been making in the Italian room! You’d have thought her face was a bit of string, and she trying to tie knots in it! No, Mrs. O.; I’ll fetch Dora and Claude, and that’s all you get me to do. You may ring the bell for Mrs. Per, but not me.”
“Well, perhaps it would be more comfortable,” said she, “without Lizzie, if you’re sure as she won’t feel she should have been sent for. I don’t feel to want any antics to-day.”
He stood by the bed a moment before going.
“I’ve never loved you like to-day,” he said.
“Well, that’s good hearing,” she said; “but you repeat yourself, Eddie. I’ve heard you say that before, my dear.”
“And it was always true,” said he.
The moment he had left the room she called to the nurse.
“Now make me tidy, nurse,” she said, “and if you’d smooth the bedclothes, and a pillow more, my dear, would make me look a little more brisk-like and fit for company. There’s Lady Dora coming, so pretty and so sweet to me, and my son Claude, her husband. My hair’s all anyhow, so if you’d just put a brush to it, and there’s a couple of rings on the dressing table, which I’ll put on; handsome, aren’t they, diamonds and rubies. Thank you, nurse, and we’re only just in time. Come in, my dears; come in and welcome.
“Such a way to receive you,” she said. “But there, why apologize, for if I didn’t always say my bedroom was the pleasantest room in the house. Dora, my dearie, you’ve taken good care of Mr. O., and thank you, and he’s so pleased with you that I’m on the way to be jealous. You wait till I’m about again, and see if I don’t cut you out. Mr. O., do you hear that? Dora’s got no chance against me, when I’m not a guy like this, lying in my bed. And you sit there, Dora, and Claude by you, as should be, and Mr. O. on the other side. There’s a nice comfortable party, what I like.”
“What’s this talk of a guy?” said Claude. “You look famous, mother.”