Cheriton, however, although he advanced no positive reasons why disrespect should be offered to the officiating clergy, showed a marked disposition for Divine Service to begin without him. He loitered and loitered upon absurdly flimsy pretexts. And just as the procession was about to start from the door of Caroline’s residence he mislaid his umbrella.
CHAPTER IX
IN WHICH CHERITON DROPS HIS UMBRELLA
“NEVER mind your umbrella,” said Caroline, tartly.
“I must mind my umbrella,” said Cheriton, plaintively. “If one attends Divine worship in London in the middle of the season without one’s umbrella, one is bound to be taken for an agnostic.”
“John,” demanded Caroline, “what have you done with his lordship’s umbrella?”
“You placed it here, my lord,” said John, indicating an umbrella with an ivory handle and a gold band.
“Nonsense,” said Cheriton. “I don’t own an umbrella with an ivory handle.”
John looked at the gold band and assured his lordship imperturbably that his name was upon it. Cheriton examined it himself.
“It is the name of my father,” said he. “How the dooce did an umbrella with an ivory handle come into the possession of my father!”
The clock in the hall slowly chimed eleven. The procession started for Saint Sepulchre’s with the redoubtable Caroline in a decidedly unchristian temper, with Miss Burden profoundly uncomfortable, with Miss Perry innocently absorbed in her new frock and preoccupied with the modest hope that the passersby would notice it; whilst Cheriton walked by her side apparently without a thought in his head save the ethical significance of an ivory-handled umbrella.