"Excuse me, I don't want to show it to Rainham yet. I—I want to astonish him, you know."
He laughed rather uneasily, and Eve gave way, with some surprise in her eyes, and a puzzled cloud on her pretty brow, and went and seated herself on the settee at her mother's side.
"He's afraid of my critical eye, Mrs. Sylvester," said Rainham gravely. "That's what it is. Well, if you don't show it me now, you won't have another opportunity yet awhile."
"That's it, Eve," exclaimed Lightmark hastily. "I'm afraid of his critical what's-his-name. You know he can be awfully severe sometimes, the old beggar, and I don't want him to curl me up and annihilate me while you're here."
"I don't believe he would, if it were ever so bad," said Eve, only half satisfied. "And it isn't; it's awfully good. But it's too dark to see anything now."
"By Jove, so it is! Mrs. Sylvester, I'm awfully sorry; I always like the twilight myself. Rainham, would you mind ringing the bell. Thanks. Oh, don't apologize; the handle always comes off. I never use it myself, except when I have visitors. I go and shout in the passage; but Mrs. Grumbit objects to being shouted for when there are visitors on the premises. Great hand at etiquette, Mrs. Grumbit is."
The lady in question arrived at this juncture, fortified by a new and imposing cap, and laden with candles and a tea-tray, which she deposited, with much clatter of teaspoons, on a table by Mrs. Sylvester's side.
"Thank you, Mrs. Grumbit. And now will you come to a poor bachelor's assistance, and pour out tea, Mrs. Sylvester? And I'm very sorry, but I haven't got any sugar-tongs. I generally borrow Copal's, but the beggar's gone out and locked his door. You ladies will have to imagine you're at Oxford."
Mrs. Sylvester looked bewildered, and paused with one hand on the
Satsuma teapot.
"Don't you know, mamma, it isn't—form, don't you say? to have sugar-tongs at Oxford? It was one of the things Charles always objected to. I believe he tried to introduce them, but people always threw them out of the window. I think they're an absurd invention."