There was complete silence for an instant. Before it had assumed significance, Mark Easter broke it with cheerful trivialities.
Julian wondered whether Miss Marchrose was conscious of challenge.
Her face was inscrutable, but he felt by no means sure that she had not very accurately interpreted Edna's unspoken warning that Mark Easter, if necessary, should yet be told how Clarence Isbister had fared at the hands of his betrothed.
When the not-too-successful dinner had come to an end, and Mark had returned to the drawing-room with the reluctant Julian and a now eloquent Garrett, whose discourse on the convivial proclivities of "we-fellows-about-town" had met with the smallest possible amount of attention from either of his seniors, success seemed within more measurable distance of the evening's entertainment.
Julian was not, indeed, pleased to find the son and daughter of the house sprawlingly occupying the hearthrug, to the exclusion of everyone else from sight or heat of the fire, but he perceived that Ruthie and Ambrose, objectionable in themselves, had at least served to obviate possible mutual friction between the remaining occupants of the room.
Lady Rossiter was maintaining with persevering sweetness a kindly catechism as to the tastes and habits of Master Ambrose Easter, who responded with his newly-acquired monosyllable, reiterated upon a loud, enquiring, unintelligent note. Iris was picturesquely turning over a heap of music just where the lamplight fell on her bright, soft hair, and Miss Marchrose, leaning back in an armchair, hearkened with an unsympathetic expression to Ruthie's noisy and highly-emphasised rendering of an objectionable poem blatantly entitled "I am Grandpa's Little Sweetheart."
"Children, I thought you were in bed long ago," said Mark, eyeing them in a rather dejected fashion.
"Sarah can't put us to bed yet, she's got to wash up," said Ambrose, in a practical way.
"Listen, Daddy!" cried Ruthie:
"So I'm the little girlie who always has to go