"I don't see your son here, Mrs. Welwyn," said Lady Adela. "We had the pleasure of his company for a few minutes on Saturday."
"He will be here any minute, your--Lady Adela," replied Mrs. Welwyn with a jerk. "He is usually kept in the City till close on five, poor boy."
"That aged retainer of yours seems to be a bit of an autocrat, Tilly," said Dicky, taking Mrs. Carmyle's chair at the tea-table.
"Yes," agreed Tilly, feeling rather miserable at having to talk to Dicky in this strain; "but you know what old servants are. In their eyes we never grow up."
"Has he been with you for long, then?" enquired Sylvia, with a deep appearance of interest.
"How long has Russell been with us, Mother?" said Tilly, noting that Mrs. Welwyn's conversation with Lady Adela was beginning to flag.
"I can't remember, dear. It seems a long time, anyhow," replied Mrs. Welwyn with sincerity. "Ah, here is Percy. Come in, my boy. Just in time to hand round the cakes!"
"You can trust little Perce," observed that engaging youth, entirely at his ease, "to be on the spot at the right moment. How de do, Lady Adela? I hope this finds you as it leaves me."
He shook the very limp hand of Lady Adela, and having bestowed an ingratiating smile upon Sylvia, proceeded amid a slowly intensifying silence to offer a humorous greeting to Mr. Mainwaring. Finally he turned to Dicky, and slapped him boisterously upon the shoulder.
"Well, my brave Ricardo," he enquired, "how goes it?"