Melville smiled, and did not betray the least irritation.
"My dear," he said, "facts are stubborn things. Does it never strike you, that though my father dines at the houses of the gentry in the county, sits on the bench, and rides to cover, you and my mother are not invited to accompany him. The truth is my good mother dislikes the usages of genteel life."
Melville used that objectionable word with emphasis. Genteel was in those days used as some of us now use words which are scarcely more significant, though generally accepted—"Good form," "A 1," and so forth.
"It is," Melville continued, grandly, "the result of early associations; and so we eat heavy one o'clock meals and nine o'clock suppers, instead of dining at three or four o'clock; and my mother, instead of receiving company in the house, works in it like a servant. It is a vast pity, my dear. It keeps the family down, and destroys your chances in life. So I advise you to try to alter things. Now Arundel is coming, I want to dine at a less outlandish hour, and I——"
Whatever Mr. Melville Falconer wanted Joyce did not stay to hear. She left the large hall by one door as her mother entered by the other, bearing in her hand a tray of delicately prepared breakfast for her son, who was wholly unworthy of her attentions, and would have been better without them.
"Thank you, mother," Melville said. "I hope the toast is not dried up. There is so much skill even in the poaching of an egg."
"There are two ways of doing everything," was Mrs. Falconer's rejoinder. "Now I must be quick, for I have a deal of work upstairs."
"Why should you have work, mother?"
"Why did you invite a fine gentleman here? You had better answer that question. The best room must be got ready, and the feather bed laid before the fire."
"A fire in this weather!" exclaimed Melville.