"Good-bye, dear," said the doctor, then turned to his wife, and hesitated.
"Good-bye, Flower," he said, rather wistfully.
Flower objected to any demonstration in public. She waved her napkin.
"Good-bye, my lord," she said, "and while you are gallivanting about at Brighton, please remember your poor, little domesticated wife staying at home to tend house and children."
The door closed sharply behind the doctor. The baby's godmother bent over her plate in silence. The doctor's wife laughed, moved round the table to cut a slice of cake, laughed again, rather mirthlessly, then reiterated all the reasons why it was unreasonable of Deryck to have asked her to go to Brighton, and of Jane to have made such a point of her acquiescing, concluding with, "And why do you call him 'Boy'? Such a silly, inappropriate name! And, oh, I wish I had gone! I hear his hansom. What a hateful world!"
Eight o'clock in the evening.
The soft, green curtains were drawn in Flower's boudoir, shutting out the chill of the spring night air. The electric light, shining through water-lilies, gleamed, soft and bright, from walls and writing-table. Flower had turned on every spray, hoping to lighten with exterior brightness the heavy shadow of disappointment and foreboding which had fallen upon her heart.
Since the doctor's hansom had tinkled rapidly away towards Victoria, all had gone wrong with the doctor's wife.
The baby's godmother, who had had so much to say in the morning, became absolutely monosyllabic, and conversation languished and died.