“I am very much in his debt,” Jeremy said. “I suppose he saved my life.”
“You should not be too grateful to him,” the Speaker interposed, in a manner almost too suave. “Any man that found you must have done what he did. You are not to exaggerate your debt to him.”
The girl laughed, and suppressed her laughter, and again the Lady Burney frowned. Jeremy, scenting the approach of a family quarrel and unwilling to witness it, spoke quickly and at random in the hope of relieving the situation: “I hope, sir, you will allow me to be grateful to Mr. Vaile, who was, after all, my preserver, and treated me kindly.”
The girl laughed again, but with a different intention. “Mister?” she repeated. “What does that mean?”
Jeremy looked at her, puzzled. “Don’t you call people Mister now?” He addressed himself directly to her and abandoned his attempt to embrace in the conversation the Speaker, who was trying to conceal some mysteriously caused impatience, and the Lady Burney, who was not trying at all to conceal her petulant but flaccid displeasure.
“No,” said the girl, equally ignoring them. “We call Roger Vaile so because he is a gentleman. If he were a common man we should simply call him Vaile. Did you call gentlemen—what was it?—Mister, in your time?” Jeremy, studying her, admiring the poise with which she stood and noting that, though she wore the narrow, simply-cut gown of the rest, it was less tortured with embroidery, strove to find some way of carrying on the conversation and suddenly became aware that there was some silent but acute difference between the Speaker and his wife.
“Eva!” the Lady Burney broke in, disregarding her husband’s hand half raised in warning. “Eva,” she repeated with an air of corpulent and feeble stateliness, “I am fed up with your behavior!”
Jeremy started at the phrase as much as if the stupid, dignified woman had suddenly thrown a double somersault before him. But he could see no surprise on the faces of the others, only unconcealed annoyance and alarm.
“You may go, Eva,” the Speaker interposed with evident restraint. “Jeremy Tuft is to be our guest, and you will see him again. He has much to learn, and you must help us to teach him.”
The girl, as though some hidden circumstance had been brought into play, instantly composed her face and bowed deeply and ceremoniously to Jeremy. He returned the bow as well as he was able, and had hardly straightened himself again before she had left the room.