UNREHEARSED
Mr. Mainwaring, Lady Adela, and party--the latter comprised Sylvia, Connie Carmyle, and Dicky--came to a standstill in the middle of the vast and empty drawing-room and looked enquiringly about them. Lady Adela, upon whom the labour of climbing the staircase had told heavily, first deleted from her features the stately smile which she had mechanically assumed before crossing the threshold, and then began to sit down upon the piece of furniture which Mr. Stillbottle had recently valued at twelve-and-six-pence.
"I would n't set in that chair, mum, not if I was you," remarked a husky voice in her ear. "The off 'hid leg is a trifle dicky."
Lady Adela, suspended in mid-air like Mahomet's coffin, started violently upwards into a vertical position, and then, having, on the advice of the officious Mr. Stillbottle, selected the sofa, took in the drawing-room with one comprehensive sweep of her lorgnette.
Mr. Stillbottle withdrew, doubtless to con his lines.
"H'm," remarked Lady Adela. "This is evidently not one of the rooms that has just been in the hands of the painters and decorators."
"Dick," enquired Sylvia, who had been superciliously inspecting the mahogany whatnot with the deal back, "who was that furtive Oriental person who slipped past us on the staircase? Not another future relative-in-law, I trust."
"The stout nigger gentleman, you mean?" said Dicky, with unimpaired good humour. "I fancy he must have been calling on Mr. Welwyn about his studies. I have a notion that London University is somewhere about here."
"What a jolly old-fashioned house this is," said Connie from the window-seat. "How nice and shady this big square must be in summer."
"It is a fairly shady locality all the year round, I fancy," observed Sylvia sweetly.