"If you had been a little gentleman," said Miss Press, as the hostess left the room, "you would have shot out of your chair, opened the door for her, carried the teapot to the kitchen, and held the caddy while she put in more tea. And then you'd have fiddled about with the kettle while she held the teapot, and poured boiling water over her hand. After that you'd have gone down on your knees, and then you'd have kissed it better. At least, that's how you'd have behaved if you had been a mother's boy in the Guards. Wouldn't he, Bonser?"
"Shut up, Press," said Miss Bonser. "It's a shame to rag as you do."
"But he's a swanker," said Miss Press. "And I don't like swankers."
Mr. Harper was in a state of extreme misery and feeling very pink about the ears, when the smiling Miss Dobbs reappeared with a fresh pot of tea. The way in which she contrived to efface the tragic incident was admirable. She poured out gracefully a cup of tea for Mr. Harper, a terribly weak cup of tea it was, and pressed half a buttered scone upon him and smiled at him all the time, perhaps a little anxiously, with her wonderful teeth. But in spite of these winning attentions, it was not certain that the young man was going to enjoy himself. That honest and forthright "Damn you" had brought with it somehow the taste of Auntie's whip, and he could feel it still. Then, too, these clever and witty ladies had a way of making him feel ridiculous. Also, they spoke a language he didn't understand. Moreover, he knew that Miss Press meant it when she said he wasn't a gentleman. To tell the truth, that was a fact of which he was growing daily more conscious, and the jesting remark of Miss Press hurt almost as much as the "Damn you."
"If I was clever, and had a three-hundred-pound serial running in Brown's Magazine," said Miss Press, "I'd be so set up with myself that I wouldn't give a word to a dog when I came out to a bun-worry. Would you, Bonser?"
"Shut up, Press," said the benign Miss Bonser. "Little girls should be seen but not heard—at least, that's what my dear old governess taught me in the long ago."
"Yes, I knew you was brought up a clergyman's daughter," said Miss Press, returning stoutly to the charge. "And so was Pressy and so was Dobby, and so was all of us."
"Play cricket, Pressy," said the hostess, rather plaintively.
For all that he knew, Mr. Harper might have been listening to a dead language. This may have relieved his mind a little. All the same, it made it very difficult to take a hand in the conversation, which these ladies clearly felt to be the duty of a gentleman, whether he was in the Guards or not.
Suddenly Miss Press caused a portion of Mr. Harper's buttered scone "to go the wrong way" by placing one of his hands in that of his hostess, who had taken a seat rather near him.