Tea was a meal of masked excitement, of gigglings scarcely suppressed by the children, and of a careful air of there being nothing particular in the wind on the part of Uncle Charles and Mr. Penfold. When the last cup had been emptied, the last piece of cake reduced to crumbs and memory, Charles was at last allowed to say the words which had been arranged for him to say, and which, all through the meal, he had been bursting to repeat.
‘Please, uncle, there is a meeting of the Society of the Secret Rose in the drawing-room, and the Rosicurians have got a present for you’—‘a presentation,’ corrected Charlotte—‘a presentation, and will you please come and be presented.’
‘It’s all wrong,’ said Charlotte, who had composed the speech for him and had the natural vanity of an author. But every one was getting out of their chairs, and in the noise they made, nobody heard her.
The drawing-room certainly looked, as Harriet had said when she peeped into it before tea, ‘a fair treat’—with its white-spread floor; its vases and jugs and jars of roses; its rose-leaf-covered table, edged with the twelve symbolic flowers in jam-pots, white and elegantly small; and all the splendour of afternoon sunshine real and reflected. The Uncle looked at the room over his glasses, just as though he had never seen it before.
‘Beautiful,’ he said; ‘very beautiful.’
Charlotte took him by the hand and said:
‘Dear uncle, this time we make you a presentation, and it’s not to get anything out of you. But just to show what we think of you. Caroline will read you what we’ve written, like addresses to mayors, you know. We hadn’t time to illuminate it to-day, but we will afterwards, if you like. And when she has read it, we will give you the real presentation. It is under the basin in the middle. But you mustn’t look at it till we say——’
She stopped. The others looked at her meaningly.
‘I can’t help it,’ she said, flushing. ‘I’ve forgotten the words. Uncle saying “Beautiful” put it out of my head. But it means the same as the words I settled to say, and Charles didn’t remember his either.’
‘Your address was exactly what all addresses should be,’ said the Uncle—‘short and to the point. I pledge my honour to respect the secret of the basin until I am permitted to approach it.’