"Why—nothing, I'm afraid. Only to love her."
"Hmm. Well, you'll have to add a bit of practical aid to the loving, I guess, if you want to keep her with you. She looks as if the wind might blow her away if she got caught out in it. Now, good night. You and your brother can go. I'll sit here till that saucy Irishwoman gets my room ready. Take care! If you don't mind where you're going, you'll drop sperm on the rug, tipping that candlestick so!"
"TAKE CARE! YOU'LL DROP SPERM ON THE RUG, TIPPING THAT CANDLESTICK SO!"
Hallam had been standing, leaning against the newel post, with his own too ready temper flaming within him. But there was one tenet in the Kaye household which had been held to rigidly by all its members: the guest within the house was sacred from any discourteous word or deed. Else the boy felt he should have given his new-found relative what Cleena called "a good pie-shaped piece of his mind."
He had to wait a moment before he could say "good night" in a decent tone of voice, then swung up the staircase in the direction of his mother's room.
Amy was too much astonished to say even thus much. She righted the candlestick, amazed at the interest in rugs which Mr. Wingate displayed, and followed her brother very slowly, like one entering a dark passage wherein she might go astray.
She stopped where Hallam had, before their mother's door, which was so rarely closed against them. Even now, as she heard her children whispering behind the panel, Mrs. Kaye came out and gave them each their accustomed caress; then bade them get straight to bed, for she would be having a long talk with them in the morning, and she wanted them to be "as bright as daisies," to understand it.
"Mother, that man! He—he's so dreadful! He scolded me about the candlestick, and—and you—and he made me feel like a great baby."