She came running downstairs. George caught and kissed her, and as they went along the passage René wondered how it could be possible for one extra person to make the house seem overfull.
It was certainly a party. Mrs. Fourmy set the note, a ceremonious expansiveness in opening up the family to its new member. René’s achievements were paraded, and the letter written by his headmaster, which had finally decided the family that he was too good for commerce, was produced and read aloud. George’s virtues as a son were extolled and punctuated with his protest:
“I say, mother, draw it mild.”
And Elsie’s rather too fervent:
“Of course I know I’m very lucky.”
They played bridge and René lost fourpence, because he played with his mother, who never could remember to suit her declarations to her score, or to return her partner’s lead, and had no other notion of play than to make her aces while she could.
Elsie talked of her family, especially of a rich uncle she had who kept a timber yard and of a cousin who was a Wesleyan minister. Of her own immediate relations she spoke affectionately but little. Altogether she was so anxious to please that René forgot his first distasteful impression and set himself to make her laugh. She was grateful to him for that. The evening would not have been a success for her without abundant laughter, and George’s jokes were just a little heavy. Also she seemed to be slightly afraid of him, as though in all her responses to him were a small risk, rather more, at any rate, than she could always venture to take. She warmed to René, therefore, and between them they kept things lively.
In a silence while George was dealing—for he took his bridge very seriously—René hummed a bar or two of a piece called Blumenlied, which he had been taught to play as a boy when he worked off the set of music lessons George had begun and relinquished.
“Oh, Blumenlied!” cried Elsie; “I adore that,” and she took up the air.
“You’ve got a pretty voice,” said René.