It was really not necessary for Mrs. Lascelles to offer the coolest chair to Lord Cheriton. For, if the truth must be told, he looked cool enough already. It was perhaps his most assiduously cultivated and most carefully cherished characteristic. However, he took the chair Jim’s mother had indicated. He took it almost as if he were conferring homage upon it. Having chosen a likely spot upon the varnished boards upon which to set his silk hat, he proceeded to place it there with immense precision. He then crossed his lavender trousers very urbanely, displaying in the process an extremely neat and spotless pair of white gaiters. He then placed his black-rimmed eyeglass in the left or more fashionable eye, and surveyed his surroundings with a leisurely benevolence that was really most engaging.
By the time Cheriton appeared to be pleasantly settled, and by the time Mrs. Lascelles had fully recovered from the effects of Miss Perry’s third hug, she said—
“Ring, laddie.”
Jim obeyed. He had assumed already an air of almost unwarrantable humor.
The little maid-of-all-work entered.
“Tea, please, Miranda,” said her mistress.
Miranda embellished the command of her mistress with a totally unnecessary half courtesy which she was apt to produce upon state occasions. It was a remarkably effective little affair, although its true place was undoubtedly a comic-opera.
“Capital!” murmured Cheriton. And then, as a pause in the conversation seemed to give his remark a significance to which it laid no claim, he added sententiously, “weather!”
“Yes,” said Jim, “capital weather.”
Miss Burden addressed a remark to Jim’s mother.