His objurgations became incoherent, through none the less expressive for that, and gaining steadily in volume as he sought, in vain, to overpower the torrent of self-defence instantly emitted from Ruthie's lungs of brass.
Sir Julian Rossiter laid down his paper, opened the French window, and thrust both his visitors into the drive.
"Bolt the window, Julian," said his wife hastily. "And I will tell Horber not to let them in at the front door. Much as I love children, I can't have them rushing in on us at breakfast; it's really too much."
"Do you suppose all their morning calls end like this?" remarked Sir Julian, as he watched their departing guests stagger down the drive, Ambrose's large head still shaking with his wrath, and the voice of his sister still audibly browbeating and calling him "Peekaboo."
"Why does she call her brother by that senseless and revolting nickname?"
"I don't know. I think it's a nursery relic, and dates from the days of their unfortunate mother."
"The dipsomaniac?"
Lady Rossiter said nothing. She was aware that Mrs. Easter's enforced retirement into a home for inebriates was an ancient scandal, and that Julian had only introduced a reference to it in the idle hope of trapping her into disregarding her favourite touchstone in conversation—"Is it kind, is it wise, is it true?"
Unlike his wife, but in common with many people less apt at analysing the idiosyncrasy than himself, Sir Julian habitually preferred silence to speech, unless he had anything unpleasant to say. It was one of the many differences which did not make for unity between them.
"I wonder," Sir Julian presently observed, "what publisher is undertaking the responsibility of 'Why, Ben!' How exactly like Auntie Iris to choose such a preposterous name, and to call it 'A Story of the Sexes' into the bargain! She can't be more than twenty."