'Oh, yes, I brought them specially'—Lord Borrodaile deflected his course in order to take up from the table two squares of cardboard tied face to face with tape.
'Bless the man!' Mrs. Freddy contemplated him with smiling affectation of scorn. 'I mean the new photographs of the children. He's thinking of some reproductions Herbert Tunbridge got while he was abroad—pictures of things somebody's unearthed in Sicily or Cyprus.'
'Crete, my dear.' He turned his back on the fond mother and Jean who was already oh-ing with appreciation at the first of a pile of little Saras and Cecils. When he came back to his corner of the sofa he made no motion to undo his packet, but 'Now then!' he said, as he often did on sitting down beside Vida Levering—as though they had been interrupted on the verge of coming to an agreement about something.
She, with an instinct of returning the ball, usually tossed at him some scrap of news or a jest, or some small social judgment. This time when he uttered his 'Now then,' with that anticipatory air, she answered instantly—'Yes; something rather odd has been happening. I've been seeing beyond my usual range.'
'Really!' He smiled at her with a mixture of patronage and affection. 'And did you find there was "something new under the sun" after all?'
'Well, perhaps not so new, though it seemed new to me. But something differently looked at. Why do we pretend that all conversion is to some religious dogma—why not to a view of life?'
'Bless my soul! I begin to feel nervous.'
'Do you remember once telling me that I had a thing that was rare in my sex—a sense of humour?'
'I remember often thinking it,' he said handsomely.
'It wasn't the first time I'd heard that. And it was one of the compliments I liked best.'