Miss Tripp appeared very much surprised to meet Mr. Hickey again; she gave him a beautiful little hand of welcome from the deep chair where she was enthroned with Richard upon her knee ruthlessly crumpling the skirt of one of her carefully cherished gowns.
"I'm telling the children a fairy story," she said archly; "you mustn't interrupt."
"May I listen, if I'm a good boy?" asked Mr. Hickey, endeavouring to assume a light and festive society air, which hardly comported with his tall spare figure and the air of sober professionalism which he had acquired during a somewhat stern and strenuous past.
Carroll, who guarded Miss Tripp's chair on the right, exchanged puzzled glances with Doris who occupied the left. The little girl giggled.
"You aren't a boy," she said, addressing Mr. Hickey with a confidence inspired by past acquaintanceship; "you're all grown up."
"I like fairy stories, anyway," he asserted untruthfully; "and I want to hear the one Miss Tripp is telling. You'll let me; won't you, Doris?"
"I'll let you, if Aunty Evelyn'll let you; but I guess she won't."
Miss Tripp laughed musically. "What a quaint little dear it is," she murmured, kissing the child's pink cheek. "Why shouldn't Aunty Evelyn let Mr. Hickey hear the story if he wants to, dear?"
"He's too old," said Doris convincingly. "He wouldn't care about Cinderella losing off her glass slipper."
"Oh-e-e, Doris Brewster!" exclaimed Carroll, swelling with the superior enlightenment of his three years of seniority. "That's very rude indeed! Mr. Hickey doesn't look so very old. He's got quite a lot of hair left on the sides of his head, and——"