They both looked at Sir Isaac who was sitting on the music stool and eating a piece of tea-cake with a preoccupied air. He swallowed and then spoke thoughtfully—in a tone of detached observation. Nothing but a slight reddening of the eyes betrayed any unusual feeling in him.
“It’s my opinion,” he said, “that that old lady—Lady Beach-Mandarin I mean—doesn’t know what she’s saying half the time. She says—oh! remarkable things. Saying that for example!”
“But did she call on me?”
“She called. I’m surprised you didn’t hear. And she was all in a flurry for going on.... Did you come down, Mr. Brumley, to see if Lady Harman was ill?”
“That weighed with me.”
“Well,—you see she isn’t,” said Sir Isaac and brushed a stray crumb from his coat....
Mr. Brumley was at last impelled gateward and Sir Isaac saw him as far as the high-road.
“Good-bye!” cried Mr. Brumley with excessive amiability.
Sir Isaac with soundless lips made a good-bye like gesture.
“And now,” said Sir Isaac to himself with extreme bitterness, “now to see about getting a dog.”