Then old Mrs. Blenkinsop, the childless widow of a Common Councilman of London, one morning met the Twins in the village. They greeted her politely and made to escape. But she was in the mood, her most constant mood, to babble. She stopped them, and with a knowing air, and even more offensive smile, said:
“So, young people, we’re going to hear the sound of wedding bells very soon in Little Deeping, are we?”
Erebus merely scowled at her, for more than once she had talked about them; but the Terror, in a tone of somewhat perfunctory politeness, said:
“Are we?”
“I should have thought you would have known all about it,” she said with a cackling little giggle. “Mind you tell me as soon as you’re told: I want to be one of the first to congratulate your dear mother.”
“What do you mean?” snapped the Terror with a disconcerting suddenness; and his eyes shone very bright and threatening in a steady glare into her own.
“Oh, nothing—nothing!” cried Mrs. Blenkinsop, flustered by his sternness. “Only seeing Sir James so much with your mother—But there—there’s probably nothing in it—the Morgans always were rovers—one foot at sea and one on shore—I dare say he’ll be in the middle of Africa before the week is out. Good morning—good morning.”
With that she sprang, more lightly than she had sprung for years, into the grocer’s shop.
The Twins looked after her with uneasy eyes, frowning. Then Erebus said: “Silly old idiot!”
The Terror said nothing; he walked on frowning. At last he broke out: “This won’t do! We can’t have these old idiots gossiping about Mum. And it’s a beastly nuisance: Sir James was making things so much more cheerful for her.”